


"Walkie Check, One, Two."

by Ronan Vespertine (Akina1521)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family Vibes, Gen, Sorry Not Sorry, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, in the first 4 chapters, jeez i never thought id have to raise the rating and the tags for this one, my bad lol, walkie talkies, you heart will start to hurt in the last 2-3 chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akina1521/pseuds/Ronan%20Vespertine
Summary: 5 Times Morgan Used her Walkie Talkie for “Important Business” and the 1 Time It Actually Is





	1. “Morgan to Daddy. Goodnight, Daddy!”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan uses her walkie talkie to say goodnight to her daddy when it’s bedtime.

When Morgan saw the walkie talkies in the cop drama her mother was watching, she knew she _had_ to get some of those for her family. But being a 5 year old child dependent on her parents for food, shelter, and general welfare, she couldn’t buy a set of walkie talkies by herself.

Morgan sat back with a sigh on her bedroom floor. Her piggy bank was toppled over in front of her, coins and bills scattered on the floor next to it. She had just finished counting her money and had come to a total of $5.27. It wasn’t enough for even one walkie talkie. Morgan pouted and glared at the pig, cursing her financial hardships.

Luckily, her dad was a billionaire.

Morgan got up and trotted downstairs. After a bit of wandering around, Morgan spotted her father through one of the cabin’s windows. Tony was outside, hammering away at something in the front yard. Morgan beamed and quickly made her way out the front door, the screen door slamming shut behind her as she raced down the steps toward her dad.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Tony stopped hammering and turned, wiping away the sweat from his forehead. Her father grinned at her, crouching down and spreading his arms wide as she rushed toward him. With a grunt, Tony quickly picked her up and swung her in a circle. Morgan giggled as she twirled in the air, loud and bright.

“How’s my little munchkin?” Tony gushed, smirking as he swung Morgan round and round.

“Daddy, stop it!” Morgan managed to squeal out in between giggles. Tony grinned. Gently, he slowed to a stop and plopped her on the ground once again. Morgan let go of her father, stumbling a little as the world around her swayed back and forth. Tony kept a firm hand on her shoulders as Morgan slowly regained her sense of balance.

“So what’s got you so excited, Morguna?” Tony asked as he sat down on his wooden stool. Morgan turned to look at what he was working on. It was her soon-to-be-playhouse. Tony had undertaken the challenge to build Morgan a little wooden playhouse a few weeks ago. After snapping his fingers to disintegrate Thanos’ army, Tony finally allowed himself to rest, retiring as Iron Man once and for all to become a stay-at-home dad for the most part and a consultant for the Avengers when needed. As an actual consultant this time, Tony was charged with some of the basic operations for the Avengers.

However, after the Avengers sorted through the new blood, assisted the world with the sudden return of the Vanished, and finally returned to their individual duties, there wasn’t much to be done at the Compound. With Stark Industries only needing his help once in a while and Morgan spending half of her day at kindergarten, Tony found himself with loads of free time. So he went on a building binge, creating all sorts of things to keep himself busy, whether it be a playhouse for Morgan or design concepts for Peter’s Spider-Man suits.

Morgan turned away from where she was admiring her father’s handiwork (there was a built in kitchenette inside!) and looked up at her father with the saddest, most pitiful puppy eyes she could muster. Tony only raised an eyebrow at her, lips turning up in an amused smirk.

“You putting on the sad puppy in a box act, M?”

“Daddy,” Morgan whined, sweetness coating her young voice. “Can you buy me some walkie talkies?”

“Walkie talkies?”

“Like the ones in the shows Mommy watches.”

“Why are you watching Mommy’s cop dramas?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“And past your bedtime?”

“No.”

Tony’s other eyebrow rose.

“Yes.”

“Thought so. You’re a little rule breaker, aren’t you?”

“Please, daddy?”

Tony knelt down so that he was at the same eye level with Morgan. There was a gentle smile on his face as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“How about we make a deal? No more watching Mommy’s cop dramas, and I’ll make you some custom Stark brand walkie talkies. That sound okay?”

Morgan beamed.

“Yeah!”

“Alright, pumpkin. I’ll work on them over the week, then give them to you next Monday. Sound good?”

“Yes, daddy.”

“Alright. You want two?”

Morgan frowned and shook her head. Tony blinked at her.

“No? How many do you want then?”

Morgan smirked at him.

* * *

Pepper slowly turned the walkie talkie in her hands, taking in Tony’s handiwork quietly as her husband did the dishes. It was a blocky device, far from Tony’s usual sleek design concepts for his craft. She set her walkie talkie down on the dinner table.

“So, Morgan wanted how many?” Pepper asked, a trace of amusement in her voice. Tony sighed as he set a plate in the drying rack.

“She wanted one for everyone. And I mean _everyone._ You, me, Happy, Rhodey, Peter, May, and all the heroes we’ve ever come across.” Tony shook his head in bewilderment, not seeing Pepper’s shaking shoulders as she tried to contain her laughter. “I had to set a hard limit of a 10 mile radius with those things. Next thing you know, she’d try starting a conversation with Valkyrie halfway across the world when it’s nighttime in Norway.”

“I see.”

“The kid’s too damn smart. Literally sprung terms & conditions on me. She insisted on them being waterproof, fireproof, lightning-proof, everything! The second she got her hands on one of them, she started testing their quality by chucking it into the lake.”

“Sounds like she’d be a good product tester.”

“Definitely. Threw it in the fireplace, against a tree, under the car, and attempted the garbage disposal. Luckily, half of her mind comes from me, so I already made them as durable as possible to stand the little rascal.”

“Luckily,” Pepper drawled. She fingered the stubby antennae on the device. “Panic button?”

“Nah.”

Pepper paused.

“...Really? Anything else that comes only with the Stark brand?”

“Uh, encrypted channels that scramble the radio signals so only these specific walkie talkies can decipher the messages. Other than that, nothing.”

Pepper blinked.

“Really? What about a GPS tracker?”

“Morgan included that in her terms & conditions. I think she’s still angry about the tracking chip in Mr. Cuddles.”

“Huh.” Pepper picked up the walkie talkie again, looking at it with a touch of astonishment. “So it’s basically a normal walkie talkie?”

“Pretty much.”

“Really? Why didn’t you add anything extra?”

Tony plopped the last of the dishes on the rack and shut off the water. Grabbing a towel, he turned to face Pepper while leaning against the counter. His own walkie talkie was clipped to the waistband of his sweatpants, standing out ridiculously against his comfort clothes. He had a resigned expression on his face.

“She made it very clear that she wanted old-school retro tech,” Tony explained, drying his hands. “You should’ve seen her, Pep. She was like a mini-you.”

Pepper snorted, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Tony pointed at her accusingly.

“Are you laughing at me, Mrs. Potts?” Tony demanded faux-sternly. Pepper shook her head.

“No,” she replied, fighting her smile. Tony grinned.

“That’s what I thought.” Tony tucked the hand towel back into its hook. “Seeing as the little boss wanted them as old school as possible, I roped Pete into helping me make them.”

“Oh? Peter helped?”

“Yeah. I told you he used to go dumpster diving for salvagable parts, right? He helped me keep them as ‘low-key’ as possible.”

“And you listened?”

Tony tilted his head side to side, reluctant.

“More like he webbed my hands and built all the walkie talkies himself.”

“What?”

“I might’ve tried to add in a taser?”

Pepper closed her eyes.

_“Tony.”_

“What?! Whatever, the kid stopped me. What was he saying while he took over my personal commission? Oh yeah.” Tony pitched his voice to the highest tone he could muster. “‘Mr. Stark, you can’t give a taser to a 5 year old! What if she electrocutes her classmates?! You’ll get sued, and Morgan’ll get kicked out!’ I swear, it’s like the kid forgot I’m loaded with assets while he was napping with the dogs in the afterlife.”

Suddenly, a noise from both their walkie talkies interrupted them.

_Tssh._

_“Walkie Check, one, two. Mommy, daddy? Can you hear me? Over.”_

Tony and Pepper glanced at each other. Tony unclipped his walkie talkie and pressed the transmission button, pausing for a second as the device crackled to life.

“Good check,” Tony responded into the speaker, one eyebrow raised. “We can hear you, sweetheart. Where did you learn walkie talkie lingo?”

The fizzles stopped once Tony let go of the button. Tony took a seat at the dinner table next to Pepper as they stared at the walkie talkie in his hands. Almost immediately, the channel crackled to life again.

_Tssh._

_“Petey taught me when he was here.”_

Tony huffed out a small laugh.

“Of course he did. That nerd,” Tony fondly muttered to Pepper. Pepper smiled at the swell of adoration in her husband’s eyes. Tony brought up the walkie talkie again and spoke into it.

_Click._ “Whatcha doing now, buttercup?”

_Tssh. “I’m brushing my teeth.”_

“I hope you’re not testing to see if the thing is toilet-proof.”

_“You’re funny, daddy.”_

Pepper picked up her walkie talkie. Tony raised an eyebrow at her as she pressed the button and spoke into it.

“Morgan, sweetie. You’re brushing your teeth?”

_“Yes.”_

“Good job. But why are you brushing them?”

_“Because it’s almost bedtime.”_

Tony and Pepper looked at the clock. It was 7:57pm.

“Nice going, munchkin,” Tony praised, surprise lacing his voice. He looked at Pepper, asking a silent question with his eyes. Pepper only shrugged. “You’re on your best behavior today. Want me to come and read you a book?”

_“No, it’s okay. I can go to sleep by myself.”_

“Really, now? Our little night owl?”

Morgan didn’t respond for a while. The married couple heard Morgan’s toddling footsteps in her bedroom upstairs as she walked to her bed. It fell silent for a second.

Suddenly, the channel crackled to life again.

_“I’m just really happy about the walkie talkies.”_

Tony felt his heart clench. Pepper placed a hand on his shoulder, smiling lovingly at him.

“Daddy’s glad you like them, sweetheart,” she said into the mic. Tony couldn’t stop the pleased grin on his face as he clicked on his talker.

“Is this your way of honoring our bargain, young missy?”

_“Uh-huh.”_

“That’s great, Mor. But you can always wait for one of us to tuck you in, too, you know? Just no more watching scary police chases at night, okay?”

_“Okay.”_

“Alright, then.”

_Tssh._

_“Morgan to daddy?”_

Tony grinned. He held down the transmission button again.

“This is daddy. Go ahead, sunshine.”

_“Goodnight, daddy. I love you. Over.”_

Tony chuckled.

“10-4. I love you, too, buttercup. Sleep tight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I can write happy fics, too. What a surprise.
> 
> This idea was spun in my head a long while ago. It's based off of walkie talkie lingo, because apparently there's an etiquette, and a bunch of codes to memorize. Codes may differ from what they are, bc I think they're different for different professions? Idk.
> 
> This fic is non-Endgame compliant. Tony survives the Snap (however way he does it, I'm not focusing on details here), so we've got a happy family in a happy world here.


	2. "Agent Morgan, do you copy?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan is a secret agent. And her secret weapon is her trusty walkie talkie.

The package was right there on the kitchen counter.

Morgan squinted at her target from behind her potted plant in the Compound, careful to stay still. The boss in the kitchen hadn’t noticed her yet, busy with putting away the pots and pans. His back was to the payload, but it was a risk.

Should she go for it?

Morgan’s hand brushed the walkie talkie clipped to her belt. Silently pulling it off, she raised the device to her lips and opened the channel. The static crackled softly enough so the noise wasn’t heard in the kitchen.

“Walkie check, one, two,” Morgan whispered softly into her microphone. “Can you hear me?”

_Tssh._

_“I hear you loud and clear, Agent Morgan,”_ her partner-in-crime replied. _“I have eyes on the hallway. Coast is clear, but I don’t know when the next killjoy will return. Do you have eyes on the prize?”_

Morgan eyed the target of their mission.

“Yes,” she answered, eyes tracking the figure in the kitchen. Now the guard was cleaning up the counters with a wet dish towel, humming softly to himself. “The leader is guarding the gold. I’ve run out of weapons to fight them.”

 _“Then it’s a stealth mission,”_ her companion replied. _“You have to be careful. That package is extremely dangerous and highly addictive. If they get their hands on it, we’re all done for.”_

“I can handle it, Agent Hawk.”

_“Don’t be so sure about that. A patrol is coming.”_

Morgan’s heart sunk.

“ETA?”

_“I can buy you five minutes. I’ll distract them. But your window of opportunity is closing, Agent. It’s now or never. Agent Hawk, out.”_

The walkie talkie fizzled then died out. Morgan clipped her walkie talkie to her belt, taking in a deep breath. She eyed the situation in front of her. It wasn’t safe yet. The leader wasn’t facing her direction, but at his current angle he would be able to spot from the corner of his eye.

However, Morgan had been observing the boss’ routine for months now. She knew his movements. She knew his procedures. And soon, he would finish up with cleaning the counters.

The boss finished wiping off the last speck from the granite countertops and turned toward the sink, where a few dirty pans remained.

This was her chance!

While the man’s back was turned, Morgan stealthily tip-toed to the counter where the mission’s payload was lying innocently on the countertop. The man still didn’t notice her, and Morgan hoped the dishes were enough of a distraction. The package required delicate handling, and she needed to get back into cover before Agent Hawk’s distraction wore out. 

Morgan reached for the mission target.

Suddenly, there was a _thwip!_ and a white substance landed in the space between her and the package.

“What have we here?” an amused voice asked dangerously from above her. Morgan slowly turned her eyes upward. Peter was hanging from the ceiling, webshooter guards on his wrist and arm outstretched. He was smirking, but the messy hair falling into his eyes ruined the “bad guy” image he was trying to project. “Agent Morgan, I presume?”

“What’s going on here?” The leader had turned away from his task, alerted by the commotion. Morgan’s head spun. She lunged for the care package, but Peter was quicker. A web stuck to the side of the plate and dragged it further down the counter out of her reach as he flipped down from the ceiling and landed right in front of her on the countertop. Morgan glared at him.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with here,” she growled. Peter chuckled at her, trying to hold in his grin. 

“I think ‘Agent Hawk’ gave me some clues,” Peter told her, pulling something out of his pocket. Morgan paled when she saw her partner’s walkie talkie.

“What did you do to Agent Hawk?!” she demanded, stomping her feet. Peter grinned at her as the boss of this whole operation came around the counter to stand next to him, expression wary but curious. He leaned his hip against the countertop and crossed his arms, observing Morgan with his dark eyes.

“Nothing,” Peter replied, waggling the walkie talkie in the air. He smiled mysteriously. “He’s still in the hallway trying to distract your Auntie Natasha and Uncle Steve. But what he _didn’t_ look for…” Peter threw the walkie talkie up in the air and shot a web at it, effectively sticking it on the ceiling. He grinned evilly at her. “...was for a sticky spider-kid crawling on the ceilings.”

Morgan frantically reached for her weapon, tugging it out and aiming it at her brother in front of her. But when she pressed the trigger button, nothing came out. Morgan’s spirits sunk as Peter laughed.

“You finished all your silly string yesterday during Lila’s birthday party, remember?” he asked her. Morgan pouted angrily.

“Not fair,” she grumbled, dropping her hands. Peter smiled sympathetically. It was at this point that the leader decided to clear his throat, bringing everyone’s attention to him.

“So, Morgan H. Stark,” Tony drawled, eyes twinkling as he looked down at her. Morgan eyed the package behind them longingly. “Want to tell me why you and Clint were trying to snatch the cookies before lunchtime?”

Morgan pounced on her opportunity to use her greatest weapon, her last resort, her most effective deceptive tool—

Puppy eyes.

Morgan looked up at her dad with the widest, most saddest eyes she could muster as she puckered out her lower lip and clasped her hands together.

“Pwease, daddy?” she pleaded pathetically, ignoring Peter’s snort beside her father. “We just wanted _one_ cookie!”

She could tell her father was trying not to smile, judging by the twitch of his lips. It was all a joke to them, but for her and Agent Barton, there was no time for games. If they thought this was all funny, that was their mistake.

And if Peter was telling the truth, her fellow agent would be coming to rescue her at any second. 

“Sorry, sweetheart, you know the rules. No cookies until after—OW! What the fu—Clint?!”

Morgan grinned as her partner—and favorite uncle—Clint emerged from the hallway and shot a sticky arrow at her father. Caught off-guard, Tony yelped at the force of the $5 arrow that landed right on his temple, bobbing with his movements. Clint charged, shooting more of his sticky arrows at the duo guarding the cookies, sneering evilly the entire time.

“Agent Morgan, close your eyes!” Clint barked. Morgan did as she was told, and immediately she heard a bang close to her, a flash of light heating up behind her eyelids. She heard her father curse and stumble against the counter before she opened them.

Tony was flailing at the sudden flash bang—her daddy really needed to get better at his job as a superhero—but Peter leaped into action, despite his partial blindness. Niftily dodging all the plastic arrows, he backflipped off the counter and shot a precise shot of his web fluid at the archer, hitting him right where he was notching his next arrow. Clint cursed, before leaping and tackling Peter, ignoring his yelp of surprise. The two disappeared in a tangle of limbs, but not before Clint’s head popped up and found Morgan.

“Go, go, go!” Clint yelled frantically. Morgan leaped into action, running past her disoriented dad and snatching up the cookie tray.

Then, she ran like hell.

Morgan always had a talent for escape.

“Ack! Ow, shit! Mister Barton, that _hurts!_ Wait, where’s—? Tony, Morgan ran off with the cookies!”

“Clint, you fucking birdbrain, I’m gonna get you so bad for this!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter. But hey, we all need a little "Clint the favorite uncle" in our lives, don't we?
> 
> And cookies are definitely serious business.


	3. "Morgan to Peter? I had a nightmare."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Morgan wakes up scared and alone in the middle of the night, she uses her walkie talkie to talk to Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor warning for some slight body horror during a nightmare. 's not a lot. Just...carnivorous spiders.

Morgan doesn’t fear much. She doesn’t look at strangers with suspicion like her father does. Or plaster on a business mask like her mother. No, Morgan grew up surrounded by love and happiness, so she can never quite understand it when her parents say there is evil in the world out there. As far as she knows in her cabin-centered world, “evil” doesn’t exist.

But one day, she was picked up from daycare by Happy, not her daddy. When she asked where her father was, Happy looked at her with a strange face and told her in a quiet voice that he was in a special, magical hospital manned by sorcerers. There was real magic in the world! Morgan had been excited. She wanted to see the magic rabbits and hats!

But when Morgan arrived to the sorcerer’s house, something the adults called the Sanctum, nothing panned out the way she thought it would. First, the streets were filled with tears and joy. Morgan had plastered herself to the window of the car as Happy drove through the streets of New York, watching curiously at the happy groups of people hugging and crying and laughing with one another. Had something happened? She also noticed that there seemed to be a lot more people in New York than normal. Were there visitors from foreign countries coming over to celebrate something?

Unlike the sheer joyousness radiating from the citizens of New York, Happy’s face stayed stern and silent. Which was concerning. Happy was usually an angry guy when it came to dealing with her father, but he always softened for Morgan. But that day, Happy’s smile was a little...strained.

Second, the sorcerer’s house didn’t look all that magical from the outside. It looked like a boring apartment building, with pretty little architectural accents decorating its facade. Morgan followed Happy’s trail in disappointment. (The man was walking rather quicker than usual.) She had hoped for something with a little more “flair”, as her dad would put it.

But then magic happened. Once second, Happy was knocking on the door. The next, the two of them were stumbling after finding their surroundings had dramatically changed. Morgan looked around with wide eyes full of surprise, taking in the wooden interior design and people of various backgrounds standing around. Happy had let go of her, cursing up a storm as he swiveled his glare around the upstairs portion for some reason.

“That goddamn magic man—!”

“Sorcerer,” Rhodey corrected dryly, leaning against the banister of the grand stairs. Happy threw up his hands.

“I don’t care  _ what _ those guys call themselves! We have alien species to keep track of! As long as I get the point across, I say it’s fine!”

“Uncle Rhodey!” Morgan cried out happily, running to the man. Rhodey grinned at her and bent down, grabbing her under the armpits and hoisting her up into the air with an exaggerated grunt. Morgan giggled as Rhodey settled her against his hip.

“So how’s the little miss doing?” Rhodey asked her with a smile. “The daycare kids treating you well?”

“Yes, Uncle Rhodey,” Morgan replied obediently, looking over the man’s appearance. The man seemed tired and worn, his battle suit torn and damp in some places. Morgan scrunched her nose at the copper smell of iron and gunpowder on her uncle. “Have you been working?”

“Yep,” Rhodey said simply. He gestured to the rest of the people sitting or standing around the Sanctum. “We all just came back from one very big, very long battle.” 

There was something strange in Rhodey’s tone.

Some people she recognized. There was her dad’s friend Steve, who always seemed to be doing his job of preaching positive mindsets to the people around him. But now, the man was lying placidly in a cot, eyes dull as a couple of people dressed in loose and comfortable-looking robes rubbed salve over his body and covered them with bandages. Morgan frowned at him, wondering what the weird zipper-looking lines on his sides were. Was he getting a massage?

Others, however, Morgan didn’t recognize. There was a teenage boy dressed in red, blue, and gold metal armor, wincing as Happy aggressively took the damp cloth the boy had been dabbing at his bloody face with and started pressing on the bloodier parts of his face. The boy whined and shied away from Happy, swatting away his hands.

“Happy!” he protested with a childish whine. Happy grabbed him roughly by the shoulder to hold him in place.

“Stop being a baby about the pain, kid. You’re getting blood all over Strange’s floor.”

“I thought you didn’t like Doctor Strange?”

“It’s a matter of courtesy, kid. And it’s more like I want you to get all the bleeding bits out of the way so when FRIDAY finally hunts down your aunt, she won’t have a freak-out over seeing you like this.”

“Damn, are you always this rough with the kid?” Rhodey quipped, shooting the teenager a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, Pete. Big guy here’s just worried off his ass.”

“Watch your language!”

“Pete?” Morgan asked curiously, frowning at the boy. The boy—Pete—looks up at her with a polite smile, eyes curious.

“Hello,” he greeted her, giving her a bloodied smile. Morgan cringed at the blood dripping past Pete’s pearly whites before returning to her thought.

“Are you Peter? Peter Parker?”

Peter’s smile faltered, looking at Happy and Rhodey in question. The two adults stayed silent, leaving Peter to fend for himself.

“Y—Yeah?”

“So you  _ are _ the guy in the photo daddy keeps in the kitchen,” Morgan mused, looking at Peter with wide, wondering eyes. Peter blinked at her.

“Your...daddy?”

“Yeah! My daddy! He says he used to teach you a lot!”

“Uh, I don’t think I know your daddy, kid.”

“Yes you do! You were his intern! You took a picture in front of Mommy’s business company sign!”

A flicker of something lit up in Peter’s eyes.

“What’s your daddy’s name?”

Morgan grinned.

“Tony! Tony Stark!” she answered. Peter’s eyes widened.

“What the fu—?”

Happy slammed a hand over Peter’s mouth.

“ _ Language, _ ” he hissed. Peter whirled toward him, wide-eyed with shock and disbelief.

“What—! You—! Mister Stark had a  _ kid?! _ ” Peter shrieked. Morgan saw Rhodey shrug half-heartedly underneath her. “What—When did he have a kid?!”

“A few months after you...dusted,” Rhodey explained. Peter looked to them. Morgan didn’t really understand what was happening, but it looked as if Peter was realizing something really heavy. “Pepper hadn’t even realized it herself. She just found out after checking in with her doctor once she started feeling the baby bump.”

“What…?”

“I told you on Titan, didn’t I?” A new voice floated from up the stairs. Everyone turned to find a floating man with a red cloak billowing dramatically behind him, quietly gliding down the stairs without his feet touching the ground. Morgan cheered. Here was the magician! The man glanced at her and gave her a strained smile as he passed her. “It’s been 5 years. We’ve been gone for a length of time, Peter Parker.”

“Doctor Strange!”

Morgan wrestled free from Rhodey’s grip, almost falling headfirst into the Sanctum’s floor if not for the man’s quick reflexes. She hurriedly ran up to the man called Doctor Strange, grinning widely with delight as the cape on the man’s shoulders fluttered a little strongly with her arrival at the foot of the stairs. Doctor Strange looked down at her, blue-green eyes hiding secrets to his magical wonders.

“Hello!” Morgan greeted, ignoring everyone standing around her. “I’m Morgan.”

“Hello, Morgan,” Doctor Strange replied, smiling politely. “I’m Doctor Stephen Strange. It’s great to have you with us today.”

“Can you do a magic trick?” Morgan gushed. Strange snorted at the request, rolling his eyes.

“I can see that Stark’s humor has passed onto you,” he said dryly. Morgan frowned, suddenly remembering that her father hadn’t come to pick her up and was currently with these sorcerers to treat his injuries.

“Where’s my daddy?” Morgan asked, looking around. Despite all the injured heroes around her, there was no sign of her father. But for some reason, the air around her had changed. Everyone was standing incredibly still around her, staring at Morgan with unblinking eyes, as if they weren’t breathing. Their gazes seemed judging, watching Morgan’s every move with a silent hostility. The young girl frowned at the uncharacteristic silence, turning to Happy, Rhodey, and Peter for assurance.

They were also staring, still as statues. Rhodey’s gaze was cold and heartless, a lot more like the old photographs of the veteran in his military service. Happy’s was distant and dismissive, not quite present to answer Morgan’s questioning gaze. And Peter…

Peter was glaring at her.

Morgan was suddenly afraid.

“Where’s my daddy?” Morgan demanded, turning back to Strange. Strange tilted his head at her, the smile still plastered on his face. “Is he okay? Where is he?!”

Doctor Strange’s lips pulled back into a leering grin.

**“He’s dead, little girl.”**

The environment around her abruptly changed. Suddenly, Morgan was standing all alone on the lake’s dock, watching her father’s most treasured arc reactor float away from her on a pile of flowers. She whipped around, eyes wide as she found all the heroes that had been standing in the Sanctum still giving her their cold looks, dressed in pristine, black suits and dresses.

**“You could’ve stopped him.”**

Morgan was suddenly standing in the middle of a battlefield, staring down in horror at her father’s mutilated body. Tony wheezed and twitched against the pile of rubble he had chosen to rest against, the suit’s arc reactor flickering wildly as his twitches gradually brought his burned and blackened arm up to reach for Morgan. Morgan felt tears start to stream down her cheeks.

“Daddy?!”

**“If only he loved you enough to give up on Peter.”**

Morgan stared up at Peter, who stared back at her in disappointment. They were standing in complete darkness. Morgan took a tentative step towards her surrogate brother.

“Petey…?”

**“He told you to stop stealing the Iron Man and Rescue helmets from the garage, didn’t he?”** Peter asked angrily. Morgan flinched.

“Uh—”

**“You should’ve stopped,”** Peter continued, careless about the trembles that were starting to overtake her.  **“He could’ve forgotten about Iron Man. He could’ve left the suit for good. But you just** **_had_ ** **to pretend to be a hero, didn’t you?”**

“No, no,” Morgan whimpered. Peter snarled at her, the sound eerily like the angry cats Morgan sometimes heard in the backyard. Morgan took several steps back, fearful, but Peter stalked toward her, a murderous glower on his face. 

**“You wanted him to go back to being a hero,”** Peter snapped, the Iron Spider suit trailing over his clothes. The helmet snapped on, and the glowing red eyes of Instant Kill mode narrowed their sights on her.  **“You’re so selfish, Morgan. Now he’s dead. Because of you.”**

“No, no, no!” Morgan screamed, turning around and running away. However, the darkness that loomed around her suddenly shifted, morphing into billions of tiny, crawling spiders that scuttled toward her. Morgan screamed as she ran faster, crying as the spiders drew closer and closer to her. “Daddy! Daddy, help me!”

The Iron Man suit suddenly dropped down from the sky in front of her in her father’s iconic landing pose. Morgan’s hopes lifted, but they were soon dashed when the Iron Man suit tried to stand up, creaking hideously as it stuttered in its movements. Rust, black and red, started to crawl out of the cracks in the armor, and the arc reactor flickered crazily.

**“Sorry, Morguna,”** Tony’s tinny voice said before the helmet popped open. Morgan sucked in a sharp breath. A skull lay against the metal, maggots and flies buzzing in and out of the eye sockets.  **“Daddy’s not coming to save you this time,”** her father’s skull croaked. The jaw unlatched from the skull and fell off, dropping to Morgan’s feet and turning into spiders that crawled up her legs and began to eat away at her flesh.

Morgan screamed.

* * *

“—aaah!”

Morgan woke up with a start, panting sharply and clutching her bear with sweaty hands. Her gaze whipped around her bedroom wildly, looking for the shadows of skeletons, spiders, and familiar heroes.

The tree outside her window creaked and slammed against the glass as the night’s storm raged outside. Morgan’s breath started to normalize, her pumping heart slowing as the adrenaline of her nightmare died away, leaving only the tears on her face as evidence. Shakily, Morgan reached out for the walkie talkie on her nightstand, about to click it on when she paused.

Her mother was on a business trip. Her father was working overnight at the Avengers Compound for intelligence reports. Rhodey was in the house with her, but he wasn’t easy to wake up unless Morgan climbed down the stairs all the way to the guest bedroom to shake him awake. And she wasn’t quite willing to brave the darkness at the moment.

That left only one option.

Morgan pressed the transmission button and held the walkie talkie close to her lips.

“Morgan to Peter?” Morgan whispered quietly, afraid of the shadows lurking on her walls. “Are you awake?”

She clicked the button off. There was no response for a minute. Morgan checked the clock by the door. It said 2:15 am. Peter was probably asleep.

Disheartened, Morgan tried again.

“Morgan to Peter? I had a nightmare.”

Nothing came through the channel. Just when she was about to give up and spend the night awake under her blankets watching the sun rise, her walkie talkie sparked to life.

_ “...This ‘s Pet’r,” _ Peter responded drowsily. Morgan felt a bit of guilt take root inside of her.  _ “Wha’s goin’ on?” _

Morgan debated with herself before finally replying.

“I had a nightmare,” she confessed. 

_ Tssh. _

_ “...A nightm’re?” _

“Yeah...”

_ “What w’s it about?” _ Peter sounded more awake than he did a few seconds ago. Morgan breathed a sigh of relief as she responded.

“It was about…” Morgan stopped in her tracks, mind recalling the memory-turned-disaster-dream. She bit her lip and continued. “...the dentist.”

Peter didn’t reply for a while. When his end of the channel came to life again, there was a dubious note to his tone.

_ “....the dentist?” _

“Yeah.”

_ “Are you sure, Mor?” _ Peter sounded concerned, which she wasn’t expecting.  _ “You sound…really scared.” _

“The dentist is scary.”

_ “Not scary enough to make you cry. I’ve seen you. You’re a brave girl,” _ Peter replied. Morgan sniffled.

“I’m sorry.”

_ “Why are you apologizing?” _

Morgan shook her head, wiping her face with her sleeve.

“I—I’m the reason daddy got hurt.”

_ “What? No! Morgan, no. Where is this coming from?” _

“I kept stealing the helmets from the garage,” Morgan whimpered, unable to stop the tears from escaping once again. “I stayed up past my bedtime. I tattled on him to mommy. I kept asking for more juice pops. I—”

_ “Morgan, none of that has to do with your dad getting hurt.” _

“But it does!” Morgan cried out, clutching her bear tightly to her chest. “It does, because if I had been better at being a good girl, he wouldn’t have hated me enough to want you back.”

Peter was silent. Morgan sniffled and reached over to her box of tissues. As she blew her nose, Morgan frowned at the lack of response from her older brother. Tentatively, she held up her walkie talkie.

“....Petey?” she asked.

_ “...I’m here.” _

“Why do you sound weird?”

_ “It’s—It’s nothing, Mor.”  _ Peter’s strange lapse of energy disappeared from Morgan’s mind as her brother suddenly changed topics.  _ “What does your daddy say to you every night?” _

“What?”

_ “What does he say? When he tucks you into bed and kisses you goodnight?” _

“‘I love you, 3000’.”

_ “Okay. Now does that sound like something your daddy would say if he really hated you?” _

Morgan relaxed, soothed by her brother’s reasoning. It was one of the many reasons she loved Peter. Unlike her parents, who would only coo at her and brush over her fears, Peter would give her sound reasoning for why she didn’t need to be scared of something. Morgan smiled, falling back against her pillow and clutching her walkie talkie.

“Thank you, Petey,” Morgan whispered. She could hear Peter’s smile in his reply.

_ “Anytime. Now go back to sleep.” _

“Night, Petey.”

* * *

Peter stared at the walkie talkie in his hands for almost an hour after Morgan fell back asleep. Around 3:30, his cell phone started ringing on his desk. Confused, Peter fumbled for the device from his bed, accidentally knocking it off the desk but catching it in the last second. Sighing, Peter looked at the caller ID.

Tony.

Peter bit his lip before sliding open the answer button and putting the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

_ “Why are you awake?” _

Peter rolled his eyes, settling back against his bed as he glanced out of the window of his bedroom. The city was still dark, and the noise of New York’s never-ending life was muffled through the walls.

“Nice to hear from you, too,” Peter responded dryly. He shifted as he turned serious. “I just had a chat with Morgan. It’s no big deal.”

_ “Morgan? She’s awake?” _

“She was,” Peter corrected, mind scaling back to their short conversation. He felt his heart clench with hurt all over again. “She went back to sleep already.”

_ “Why was she awake anyway?” _

“Nightmares,” Peter told him. 

_ “A nightmare? Why didn’t she go to me?” _

“I think she’s having trouble recognizing that the Compound is within 10 miles of your home,” Peter told Tony wryly. “After all, half the time you’re working, you’re doing business overseas, where she can’t reach you.”

_ “Ah.” _

Peter watched the stars twinkle in the night sky for a while.

“So, is there another reason for you calling me?” Peter asked once the silence got too long. The boy heard Tony snort over the line.

_ “My dad sense was tingling,” _ Tony replied. Peter scrunched his face up in distaste.

“Uh, what?”

_ “Dad sense. I can sense when one of my kids is going through some mind-boggling shit,”  _ Tony elaborated jokingly. Peter scoffed.

“Yeah, right. I’m perfectly fine.”

_ “No, you’re not. Karen tells me you’ve been sitting in bed awake for the past hour.” _

Peter felt a smile grow on his face.

“So your ‘dad sense’ is complete bullshit.”

_ “Yeah, duh. I can’t sense a teenage crisis from across a whole damn city.” _

Peter laughed. As his laughter died down, Tony’s voice took on a more soothing tone.

_ “But seriously, Underoos. What’s wrong?” _

Peter sighed.

“Do you think Morgan hates me a little?” he asked tentatively. As expected, Tony reacted strongly.

_ “What? No! Kid, where is this coming from?” _

Peter smiled grimly at the parallels in his two most recent conversations.

“Nothing, just a little something she said,” Peter replied. “You know how kids sometimes say things that hurt a lot, but they don’t mean it?”

_ “What did she say?” _

Peter pouted, sulking further into his sheets.

“Don’t get mad at her.”

_ “I won’t. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of stinging childhood innocence thrown my way,” _ Tony remarked.  _ “But the reason why they sting is because they hit somewhere really close to home, something you usually keep buried under until their ignorance shoves it back up. So, Pete, what did she say?” _

Peter shuffled in his bed, facing the wall, silent. 

_ “Pete…” _

“It’s nothing, Mister Stark,” Peter told him. “I swear. You don’t need to worry about me.”

_ “Kid, if you don’t tell me, I’m just going to ask Karen. You know she’s always listening to what goes on around her.” _

Peter groaned out loud.

“Fine,” he bit out. He could practically sense Tony’s smirk on the other side of the line. “Mor had a nightmare about you hating her, I think. I’m not sure, she didn’t really give me details. But I think she was scared about you getting hurt as Iron Man, back when…”

Tony didn’t need Peter to fill in the blanks.

_ “I get it. I’ll talk to her about that. But what did she say to you, if the nightmare was about me?” _

Peter unwillingly heard Morgan’s tearful voice echo through his head again.

_ If I had been better at being a good girl, he wouldn’t have hated me enough to want you back. _

_ You’re just an after-thought, Peter. _

Peter didn’t answer.

So, Tony went ahead and got the answers for himself.

_ “Alright, I pulled up Karen’s logs—” _

“Mister Stark!”

_ “‘Tony’, kid. You know, when you switch back to using ‘Mister Stark’, it just gives your defensiveness away.” _

Peter growls under his blankets. There’s a moment of silence as Tony reads over Karen’s logs.

_ “....okay, I can see why you think she might hate you.” _

“Mister Stark—”

_ “You know she loves you, Pete,” _ Tony interrupted. Peter bit his lip and stayed silent.  _ “She fucking adores you. You’re the best big brother she could ever ask for. There’s a reason why she went to you to talk about her nightmare, kid. She trusts you.” _

Peter let out a heavy breath.

“I know,” he muttered.

_ “Good. Morgan loves you. You know that. It was just bad wording on her part.” _

“I get it, Mister Stark, thank—”

_ “I’m not finished, Underoos. Going by the whole ‘kids words sting because they hit at our insecurities’ shtick, I’m guessing you’re feeling insecure about being brought back for some reason?” _

Peter closed his eyes and turned his head, as if it could save him from the confrontation.

“I know it’s stupid—”

_ “Yeah, it’s stupid. You know why? Because you’re the reason everyone is back, Pete.” _

Peter blinked.

“What...?” he managed to say. Tony sighed, one of his I’m-going-to-open-up-my-heart-to-you-so-don’t-you-dare-make-me-regret-this sighs. 

_ “I didn’t want to help Rogers and the rest of the crew build the time machine at first,” _ Tony said bluntly. Peter felt a wave of coldness crash over him.

“Oh.”

_ “Yeah. But at that time, I had Pepper and Morgan settled on a farm with me. If we went through this whole ‘Time Heist’ idea Scott was pitching to us, I would be risking my life with them.” _

Peter swallowed.

“I get that,” he managed to strangle out. “I totally get it, I mean—”

_ “You know what changed my mind?” _

Peter pressed his lips together.

“No. What?”

_ “You.” _

Peter tensed as he felt a phantom knife stab through his heart.

“What?”

_ “You changed it. Or well, you inspired me. You ever see that photo of you I keep next to the kitchen sink? Well, I found myself looking at it that night and thought, ‘I should at least try. For the kid.’” _

Peter felt light and fluttery.

“O—Oh…”

_ “After that, I spent a few hours trying to work out various methods of time travel, figuring out a way that would allow us to bypass all the paradoxes and whatnot while keeping to all our laws and theories. And then I found it. The answer.” _

Peter took in a deep breath, but stayed silent. The next time Tony spoke, his voice was gentle.

_ “You’re the reason everyone is back, Pete,” _ Tony quietly told him.  _ “Because I wanted you back here, where you belong.” _

Peter felt his eyes start to water.

“Thanks,” Peter whispered into the phone, clearing his vision by wiping the unshed tears away. “Tony.”

_ “There’s the kid I know and love,” _ Tony snickered. Peter rolled his eyes again.  _ “Okay, now go to sleep. If Karen tells me you’re not asleep in thirty minutes, I’m putting on my suit and flying over myself to knock you out. Capiche?” _

“Night, Tony,” Peter said, smiling in amusement. Tony’s voice dropped with fondness.

_ “Night, kid. Go get some sleep.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, some heart-to-hearts! This chapter started off a little rocky, but I think it ended up alright.


	4. "10-20 for Morgan Stark. Where are you, baby girl?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan is lost in a scary place. But luckily, she has the best dad in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I love past me for already putting up this draft weeks ago. On another note, don't expect serious writing from this fic. Or more specifically, research. (Though shout-out to anony-nonny for the informative comment on irl walkie talkie lingo!) 
> 
> This fic is purely intended for fun and imagination.

Morgan didn’t mean to wander away from the babysitter. New York was full of amazing things, after all. She couldn’t help it if her curious mind got caught up with the pretty show the cotton candy man on the street was putting on. Her eyes were wide open with awe as she watched the man dressed in a red-and-white uniform twirl colorful sugar strands onto a stick, creating a neat cotton candy sculpture of a popular character she often saw in commercials.

The man hefted the sugary treat over the counter to give to his customer. As he handed it off, the man caught sight of her. He gave her a friendly smile and waved.

“Hello, there!” he greeted. “Did you enjoy the show?”

Morgan nodded quietly. _Mommy always said strangers might be bad guys._ The candy man smiled kindly at her, eyebrow raised in what Morgan can tell was slight puzzlement.

“Are your parents around?” the cotton candy man asked.

“No, but my babysitter is over—” Morgan glanced over her shoulder, but the woman who had been accompanying her for the better part of the morning wasn’t standing next to the train station like when she had left her. The quick exchange of people on the sidewalk around her told her she had no hope of finding the lady she had found waiting for her downstairs that morning, heralding the news that her father had been called away to the Compound for Avenger business. Her mother had already been overseas for a business venture at the time. 

Morgan slowly turned around, observing the constantly changing faces around her, but found no sign of the babysitter. She pursed her lips, quietly debating on how to solve this particular little problem.

“Would you like some cotton candy?”

Morgan turned back to the cotton candy man, who was still smiling at her politely. Her mother said to be careful of strangers. And Morgan was always careful. She gave him a very critical once over, taking in his relaxed stance and open facial expression, before coming to a decision.

“Yes, please,” she replied.

Soon after, Morgan walked away from the candy stand, happily holding her Spider-Man themed cotton candy. Peter’s heroic persona bobbed lightly with her steps, making her giggle as the white eyes goggled around like jelly. It was too pretty to eat right at that moment. The red was very vibrant, and could almost fool her into believing she’d be sporting a red tongue after she bit into it. The thin, black strands making up the web details of the mask were also very carefully placed. The candy man was really a genuine practitioner of the arts. Morgan decided to hold her treat in her hands for a while, struggling a bit as it was half the size of her body. 

She wandered through the city of New York for a while. Crossing streets, blending in with the people. Usually, people were too caught up in their own business to notice her, but a few gave her a curious glance.

Ultimately, no one sought to question her.

Morgan finally found her babysitter a few blocks away. However, instead of the frantic reunion she had been expecting, Morgan was confronted with the sight of her babysitter being handcuffed over a cop car, the officers struggling to restrain her as she yelled murderously at a man being similarly detained at another police car. Morgan watched as the woman was forced into the backseat of the police vehicle, kicking and screaming.

 _Ooooh, Daddy’s not going to like it when I tell him this,_ Morgan jeered tauntingly in her little mind.

It was only when the officers filed inside their cars that she realized no one had taken any notice of her.

“Uh, excuse me—!” The sudden blaring of sirens drowned out her sentence as the police cars maneuvered back into the streets and took off down the road, leaving her alone in the dust.

* * *

Morgan was worried.

She had been walking for what felt like hours. But after checking a clock on the street, and using her quickly learned skills of telling time, she found it had only been 30 minutes. Half an hour. Her legs were tired, her jacket was too thin, and she was hungry. The babysitter was supposed to bring her to Denny’s for lunch.

Morgan stopped walking, picking out another clump of her Spider-Man cotton candy to eat. She had been rationing her treat, thankful for at least a snack on her journey. There had been no police officers on her route, and the police cars she passed were always hurrying to another destination. She had forgotten to get her special watch in the morning as well, thanks to the babysitter’s pushy nature. So there was no way of contacting her dad. Morgan started to wonder if she was doomed to wander Manhattan forever.

_Tssh._

_“Daddy to Morgan. Where are you, baby girl?”_

Morgan grinned. _The walkie talkies!_ Quickly, she grabbed her own device and clicked it off her belt. _I can’t believe I forgot about them!_

_Click._

“Daddy! Hi, daddy!”

 _“Hi, pumpkin,”_ her dad responded. There was a strained note to his voice. _“Are you okay?”_

“Yes, daddy.”

_“I got a call from the police station. Did your babysitter really get arrested?”_

“Yeah. I watched them take her. I was also watching a candy man make cotton candy. He gave me one with Spider-Man’s head.”

 _“You shouldn’t take candy from strangers, Mor,”_ Tony reminded, but the resigned nature of his tone told Morgan he already knew he wouldn’t be heeded.

“He was a good guy. I can tell.”

There was silence on the channel for a while. Morgan frowned at her walkie talkie. Was her daddy mad? She clicked the button again.

“Daddy? I’m sorry. I swear I won’t do it again,” Morgan said into the receiver, uncertainty trailing into her voice. Suddenly, the changing crowds of people around her looked a lot more intimidating than before. Morgan shrank into herself, crouching on the sidewalk as the reality of the situation finally found her. She had been abandoned. Morgan looked at her half-eaten Spider-Man cotton candy sculpture and brought it closer, finding comfort in Peter’s heroic image. “I’m really, really sorry. Can you forgive me?”

 _“Of course, sweetie.”_ Tony had replied quickly, but he sounded like he was distracted by something. _“Just don’t do it again.”_

“I won’t.” 

Morgan paused. Nothing else came through the transmission channel. The little girl frowned before she spoke into her walkie talkie again. “Morgan to daddy? Come in.”

_Tssh. “Daddy’s here. I’m a little busy, buttercup. But what’s wrong?”_

Morgan debated on whether or not to tell her father about the situation. But seeing as she had no other options, she made the obvious choice.

“I’m...I’m lost, daddy,” Morgan said simply.

_“You’re lost? Happy’s on the way there. You can ask one of the officers in the police station to bring you back to the front desk.”_

“No, daddy. I’m not at the police station.”

There was a telling pause in the transmissions. After a beat, Morgan heard the radio crackle again.

 _“...You’re not at the police station?”_ Tony repeated, confusion coloring his voice. Seeing as she finally gained his full attention, Morgan quickly started to explain the situation.

“I got left behind when they arrested her. I’ve been walking for _hours_.”

 _“Oh, cra—crepes.”_ Mission accomplished. _“FRI—? FRIDAY says you don’t have your watch on, baby.”_

“I forgot it at home. The babysitter really wanted to leave.”

There was another, much longer pause. Morgan clenched her fists together and pressed the receiver button again.

“Daddy? Are you still there?”

Tony’s voice immediately came over the speaker.

 _“Don’t worry, Mor.”_ Morgan rolled her eyes at the sound of her dad’s fake peppy voice. It sounded like she wasn’t the one who was worrying. _“We’ll get you back home soon. I’m just trying to call Pete to help find you, but he won’t pick up.”_

“What about his walkie talkie?”

_“He’s at work, dumpling. He either muted it or left it in his backpack in the backroom. I’m trying to call his workplace, but the line’s dead for some reason.”_

Morgan huffed in displeasure. The Spider-Man blob sagged a little, slipping down the stick. Morgan took a moment to try and right it again.

 _Tssh. “Morgan? Sweetie?”_ Her father didn’t seem to even bother trying to hide the undercurrent of worry this time. _“You’re still there, right?”_

“Yes,” Morgan replied dutifully.

 _“Alright. Good. Let’s try to at least get a general idea of where you are,”_ Tony proposed, sounding a little more composed. _“What do you see around you?”_

Morgan stood back up and looked around. The looming buildings around her blurred in the clash of materials and colors. The constantly moving swarms of people didn’t make her task any easier.

“Um, there’s a Starbucks across the street,” Morgan said hesitantly. “A 7-Eleven, a Dunkin’ Donuts shop. And a lot of cars….”

_“Try to find something more specific, Mor. Can you see the name of a very special building or something?”_

Morgan finished turning in a circle and stared up at the massive building she was standing in front of. She crooked her head a bit to make out the steel letters on the sign above her.

“Uh, I’m right in front of a building that says ‘Manhattan Mall’,” she reported.

There was no response. Morgan waited a while, but her dad didn’t come through the transmission for a long time. She freaked out.

“Daddy! I’m scared!” Morgan whisper-yelled into her walkie talkie as she aggressively pressed down on the button. “Did you call Petey yet? The people—”

 _“Don’t worry, buttercup. You’re in a good place,”_ Tony interrupted. His voice was strangely lighter for some reason. Morgan sniffled as her dad continued. _“Peter still hasn’t picked up—”_

“You’re not supposed to interrupt me when I’m talking,” Morgan blurted stubbornly. Tony paused, but the crackle indicated he was still transmitting. “That’s bad walkie talkie etiquette.”

Tony’s chuckle crackled over the channel.

_“Oops. Sorry, Mor.”_

Morgan pouted.

“I’m really, really scared, daddy,” she whispered. 

_“I know, buttercup.”_ Tony’s voice was gentle and soothing. Morgan felt herself relax a bit. _“But everything is gonna be alright. I promise.”_

“But Petey’s not picking up.”

_“No, he isn’t. But he’s actually close by.”_

Morgan perked up.

“Really?” she asked hopefully. 

_Tssh. “Really,”_ Tony confirmed.

“But if he doesn’t know I’m lost, or that he’s near me, or anything at all, then how is he gonna find me? What if I’m lost forever?” Morgan asked fearfully.

_“Well…”_

Tony’s hesitance was there for only a brief second. When he spoke through the channel again, his voice was much peppier, strangely enough. And it didn’t sound like his trademarked _don’t-look-like-you’re-panicking-so-Morgan-doesn’t-panic_ voice. It sounded real.

_“Tell you what? Let’s play a game, Mor.”_

Morgan frowned.

“A game?” she echoed.

 _“Yep! A game.”_ Morgan wondered why her father was so at ease despite the situation. _“Like, a treasure hunt or a scavenger hunt. But instead of a ratty old pirate chest or a bunch of useless trinkets, guess what you’re gonna find instead?”_

“What?”

_“Guess.”_

Morgan scrunched her nose in thought.

“A police horse?”

_“Nope.”_

“An Uber?”

_“Heh, no.”_

“What then?”

Tony’s voice was amused as he gave her the answer.

_“You’re gonna go find Petey, baby.”_

Morgan’s eyes widened.

“I’m gonna find Peter?!” Morgan repeated excitedly. “By myself?!”

 _“Yep.”_ Her dad popped the “p”, before lowering his voice to a playfully serious tone. _“But! You need to listen to my directions very, very carefully. There are dangerous creatures where Peter works, and you have to be very brave and very fearless to avoid them. What say you, adventurer?”_

Morgan’s grin split her face with joy.

“I’m ready!” she cheered. She could easily imagine her father’s fond smile on the other side of the radio channel.

 _“Fantastic!”_ Her father was really good at his jaded adventurer voice. Morgan decided that the next time her daddy had time to play, they had to play “Adventurers in the Woodlands”. 

_“Right, first things first.”_ Her father’s voice dropped dramatically over the speakers. Morgan couldn’t help but giggle as her dad’s rumbling voice sowed a story into the air. _“The building you stand in front of today is no ordinary mall, oh Morgan of the Stark-Potts family. It is in fact a haven for spider mutants, hailing from far and wide, to seek refuge in this sorry state of a country called America.”_

“Are they being hunted by politicians, daddy?”

 _“Yes,”_ Tony agreed, much too seriously. _“Politicians feed on the blood of their carcasses, Mor. And they can smell fear. So you need to be brave so they don’t find you, okay?”_

“Okay.” _Mommy probably wouldn’t like hearing daddy say that._

 _“Good. Now where was I? Oh yeah.”_ Tony’s voice dropped back into that alluring voice. _“The mutants, having to hide from the nasty fingers of old men with a power complex, decided to bond together an establish a community where they could hide in plain sight,”_ Tony told her. _“They created malls, where their teenage generational urges for social media and luxury fashion could be cultivated in the greatest establishment born and bred from the sin we know as capitalism today.”_

“You’re very dramatic, daddy.”

 _“I was always a patron of the arts,”_ Tony quipped. _“Now, the spider mutants have lived so long in fear, hiding their strength from the world. Until one boy stood above the rest and said ‘screw you!’ to danger.”_

“That’s Petey!” Morgan cried.

_“You’re right, Mor! Puny Peter Parker, a boy born from the womb of the Black Widow. One day, he decided that instead of living in fear of those who would take advantage of his power, he would rise above that and share it, becoming the hero known as Spider-Man, dedicated to saving and protecting as many lives possible, regardless of who they were.”_

Morgan looked down at her half-eaten Spider-Man cotton candy. She took a bite out of it.

_“Morgan, that’s the leader of the spider people you’re eating.”_

Morgan looked up at the security camera she had already noticed was steadfastly pointed her way. “You said Peter shares his powers,” she accused. Her dad snickered through the channel.

 _“You’re right, he does,”_ Tony agreed easily. _“But you see, Morgan, that candy man you met was actually a secret intelligence agent for the spider people.”_

Morgan gasped.

“Really?!” she exclaimed.

_“Really. Why else do you think he did such a good job with spinning the image of Spider-Man from his sugar webs?”_

Morgan held up the red blob of cotton candy to the light with awe. She heard Tony chuckle over the line, but her father carried on.

 _“The spider people have a special way of communicating with their webs,”_ Tony continued. _“There are secret messages woven into them that can only be deciphered under special conditions. And that cotton candy you’re eating has a critical message for Peter Parker, the leader of the spider people.”_

Morgan peered closer into the strands, squinting.

“I don’t see a message.”

_“It has to be eaten to be understood.”_

“But I’m eating it.”

 _“Only the spider people can understand the language of the spiders,”_ Tony recited gravely.

“What’s the message?”

_“I’m not a spider person, Morgan. I don’t know. What I do know is that the cotton candy man saw the fire in your eyes and entrusted you with crucial information about a threat to the spider people.”_

“So then what do I do?”

_“Do you want to help save the spider people by delivering that message to their leader?”_

Morgan squared her shoulders.

“Yes!”

_“Then you’ll need to venture into their den and find him. Now, go inside the mall, Morgan.”_

Morgan quickly trotted inside, catching the door after a family passed through the glass doors. Once she was inside, the chaos of the New York streets was left behind and replaced by low murmurs from shoppers’ conversations echoing off the marbled tile floors of the spacious walkways. Lights lit up every corner of the mall, either from the glass windows of store displays or from the bright ceiling lights above. Morgan took a look at the closest stores next to her.

“I’m inside. Are these all spider people, daddy?”

_“We don’t know, Morgan. Spider people look exactly the same as humans. Which is why they hide in plain sight, to blend in. But be careful, buttercup. The spider people are hiding because sometimes, politicians disguised as human beings walk into their malls, looking for spider people to eat. You can’t trust anyone. Only Peter.”_

Morgan glared suspiciously at every shopper that passed her. They all gave her weird looks in return.

“What do I do next, daddy?” Morgan whispered into the walkie talkie.

_“Go right, sweetheart. And stay in view of the cameras. The spider people are watching you through them, making sure you don’t run into any trouble while you deliver the message to their leader.”_

Morgan did as her father said, munching on her cotton candy and refusing to be distracted by all the pretty displays. Until one in particular caught her eye. She stopped for a moment to look at a pretty pink dog display at the front of a pet grooming salon. 

_“That’s the cotton candy man’s guard dog,”_ Tony whispered exaggeratedly through the walkie talkie. _“He stands guard to protect the spider people’s allies, the dogs of New York. But he doesn’t move, for fear of the politicians noticing his existence.”_

“I hope he doesn’t get itchy,” Morgan whispered back into the walkie talkie. She continued down the hall. “How far right do I need to go, daddy?”

_“You need to find the magical stairs to the second floor of the spider people’s palace.”_

“You mean the escalators.”

_“No. Magic stairs.”_

When she found herself at the bottom of the escalators, Morgan looked up the robotic contraption with trepidation. She clicked the button on her walkie talkie.

“I’m here, daddy.”

_“Good girl. Now, take the magic stairs up to the second floor.”_

Morgan walked closer to the escalator. The automatically moving steps with jagged edges filled her with a sense of unease. She tottered a bit at the landing platform, watching the steps go by as she glanced at the sticker on the side of the escalator depicting a mother holding her child’s hand.

“Daddy, I’m scared. Don’t I need to hold someone’s hand to get on?”

_“Usually, you do. The magic stairs shake for people who aren’t welcomed by the spider people. But you, Morgan, are welcomed by the spiders. You’ll be allowed to proceed alone.”_

“How do I get on?”

_“Wave the cotton candy stick in a circle three times, then jump onto the next step.”_

Morgan clutched her walkie talkie to her chest and pressed her lips together. She did as her father told her, waving the cotton candy stick in circles. Then, glaring at the moving contraption, she bent her knees and mentally counted down. She hopped. Her sneakers landed solidly on the newly emerging step. The motion of the escalator threw her a bit off balance, and she instinctively flailed her arms to regain her footing. Once she did, though, she grinned. She was riding the magic steps! Eagerly, she clicked on her walkie talkie.

“Daddy, I did it!”

_“Good job, Mor! I knew you could do it.”_

Morgan enjoyed the solo ride up to the second floor, making faces at the passing mirrors. When the second floor drew near, she bent her knees and hopped off the escalator happily. Walking a little ways away, Morgan talked into her walkie talkie again.

“I’m on the second floor, daddy.”

_“Great. Now, you need to look for Petey’s spider office. It’s disguised as a store with the word ‘Express’ in silver letters, just like the ‘Manhattan Mall’ sign you saw outside.”_

Morgan strolled through the second floor much more slowly than she did on the first floor. Her head constantly turned as she struggled to read the signs of the stores around her.

Finally, she stopped. The storefront of the clothing store she was looking up at was painted black. The word “Express” was mounted in silver letters across the top, and the mannequins behind the windows were dressed in fine clothing. Morgan blinked at the store inside, with neatly folded piles of clothes on immaculate shelves or hung on dark, wooden hangers. There was a sizeable amount of people inside looking at what the store had to offer. Morgan picked up her walkie talkie and switched it on.

“Daddy? I’m in front of the store.”

_“That’s my girl! Now, go inside and look for Petey.”_

“Petey’s inside?”

_“Yep.”_

Morgan trotted inside, feeling out of place. The store was mainly catered to young adults, so there was nothing to welcome children her age. Morgan passed various neat piles of clothing, glancing at each person's face to see if she recognized them. She started to notice some people look at her in concern. It was unnerving her.

She hurried back outside.

“Daddy, I don’t want to go in there,” Morgan pleaded into her walkie talkie. She stole furtive glances at the few strangers who had chosen to stop and stare at her from inside the store. “They’re all staring at me.”

 _“Easy, Morgan. We need to act natural.”_ Tony’s calm voice eased her out of her fears. _“And remember, we’re not in a store. This is the headquarters of the spider leader.”_

“But I can’t see him—”

 _“Morgan, the cotton candy spider spy trusted you to deliver this very important intel to Peter,”_ Tony cut in. Morgan paused, pouting as she remembered her secret mission. _“The spider people need you, Miss Morgan. Can you brave through a little staring?”_

“But the store is scary. It’s all grown up stuff.”

 _“It’s not scary at all, Morgan. Look closer.”_ Morgan frowned but did as she was told. _“You see those shirts? The pants? The threads that make up all of them? This store is actually run by spider people. They make clothes, reinforced battle armor for their warriors. You’re among allies, Mor.”_

“Oh!” All of a sudden, Morgan could see it. The spider people blinking at her in curiosity and confusion. “I see! I get it! I’m not scared anymore!”

_“Good. Now, sweetie, go inside and look for their spider leader. Petey needs to get that message, okay?”_

“Okay.”

Morgan trotted in, much more comfortable now. A few spider people continued to stare at her, started to whisper, but Morgan now noticed that the majority of them don’t spare her a glance as they’re consumed with the work of criticizing the quality of their spider armor. Morgan weaved through racks of threaded clothes, looking furiously for the spider leader.

"—and we also have that in midnight blue—"

Morgan beamed. Quickly, she followed the familiar voice near the back of the store. As she rounded the corner, she found herself at the fitting rooms. Peter was standing in front of the stalls, talking to a customer with a pair of slacks over his arm and gesturing calmly. Morgan immediately ran toward him.

"Petey!"

Peter stopped mid-sentence as his eyes immediately snapped to her. His jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Morgan?!"

The customer said a cordial thank you and left just as Morgan bumbled into Peter's side. Peter instinctively wrapped his arms around her, crouching down to match her height. His confusion was evident across his face.

"What are you doing here? Where's Mister Stark?" Peter asked. He spotted the half-eaten cotton candy stick and narrowed his eyes. "And were you eating my face?" he threatened playfully. Morgan giggled.

"This is a secret message for you!" Morgan exclaimed. Peter blinked at her.

“A...secret message?”

“Yeah! You need to eat it to understand it!”

“Oh.” Peter took the stick of cotton candy from her and scrutinized it. “Wow, this is pretty nice. Who’s this secret message from?”

“Your most loyal spider agent! It’s critical intelligence that can tell you about the threat your spider people will encounter next,” Morgan recounted seriously. Peter smiled at her and took a bite out of the Spider-Man head. He closed his eyes, Morgan shifting impatiently.

“Well? What does it say?” Morgan demanded. Peter opened his eyes. His eyes caught sight of the walkie talkie in her hand and he grinned.

“It says you need to contact your daddy for me and act as the middle party between the spider people and the Avengers,” Peter told her. Morgan grinned.

“Yeah!” Morgan taps the transmission button. "Morgan to Daddy. Come in," she called. There was a stutter before Tony's voice filtered through the speaker.

_"Daddy here. Did you find Pete, Morgan?"_

"Yes, I did," Morgan replied. "He’s right here. And I delivered the secret message!"

_“Good job, sweetie.”_

"Hey, Tony," Peter greeted, leaning closer.

_"Hey, kid. You know it's a crime to take off Morgan's walkie talkie, right?"_

"Uh-"

_"I'm kidding. Look, Pete. Morgan's babysitter got arrested in New York and left her there."_

"What?! No way!"

_"I know. I'll deal with that later. But could you do me a favor and look after Morgan for a while? I'm overseeing an on-going raid on a suspected HYDRA base right now, and Pepper's on a business trip. Plus, I’ve already kind of ditched the team for too long. Happy'll come by soon to take her off your hands."_

"I can babysit Morgan for the rest of the day."

_"You don't have to, kid—"_

"No, it's okay. My shift ends soon, anyway,” Peter pushed, giving Morgan a playful wink. Morgan giggled. “I’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the day. Hey, maybe Morgan and I can go on adventures to rescue the spider people around New York—”

_“Absolutely not.”_

“Thought so,” Peter replied flippantly, smirking a little. “Anyway, I gotta go clock out. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.”

 _“I know you will, kid.”_ There was no mistaking the genuine trust laced in her father’s voice. Morgan watched the last of their exchange, transfixed as always. She had always found Peter’s relationship with her dad incredibly curious. There was a bond between them neither of them could really define with a single word, and it gave their interactions a strange uniqueness that Morgan was enamored by. She was a little jealous of Peter at first, when he came back to life and hogged all of her father’s attention for a while. But after gradually being included in their shenanigans, Morgan came to understand and respect that whatever the relationship the two of them had, it was something only adults could understand.

In the meantime, she’ll just settle for secretly labeling Peter as her older brother.

_“Alright, thanks kid. As soon as we wrap up this operation, I’ll swing by to bring her back home.”_

“Sounds good.”

_“Great. Mor, you did a great job today. Saved a whole lot of spider people.”_

“I did?”

_“Sure did, sweetie.”_

Morgan rewarded herself with a little fist pump.

“Nice.”

_“Heh. But now you have another mission to go on, yeah? It’s past your lunchtime, and you need to find the cure for an airborne disease in one of the nearby restaurants. Here’s a hint—it’s in the food.”_

“Okay, daddy! I’ll do my best!” Morgan pressed a kiss to the speaker of the walkie talkie. “I love you.”

_“Love you, too, sleuther. See you two soon. Wilson, for fuck’s sake—!”_

Tony’s voice abruptly stopped as he predictably returned to whatever world-saving mission he was directing. Peter turned to look at Morgan as she finished clipping the walkie talkie to her belt.

“What do you think about looking for the cure to this airborne disease at Denny’s?” Peter asked her, grinning. Morgan mirrored his expression.

“Yeah! I want pancakes!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s concept was kind of what spurred this entire 5+1 fic to begin with. Yeah, I know, Tony’s story is hella dumb, but hey, that ridiculousness helps take Morgan away from the severity of her situation, doesn’t it?
> 
> *to the ghost silently judging me in the corner* Oh shut up, as if you didn't come up with crazier stories as a kid.


	5. "Uh, Peter to Morgan. What are you doing here?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Tony are in the middle of a serious fight, and it’s been ages since Peter visited. So, Morgan decides to take things into her own hands and take to the streets of New York to find Peter herself.

It’s been two weeks since Peter came to visit.

Morgan frowned silently at her father’s back as he cleaned the living room, keeping one eye on the driveway to the cabin. Just in case she was wrong. Just in case Peter had changed his mind and was coming up in Happy’s car, eager to see his little sister. She had her high hopes that Peter and Tony had resolved whatever they were fighting about and that things would automatically return to normal that day.

But as day turned into evening and dinnertime came around, there were still only three placemats at the table.

“Morgan, honey, finish your rice please.”

Morgan poked and prodded at the stir fry on her plate. There was still half of her serving left on the table, but Morgan didn’t feel like eating. Her lips turned down in frustration, pressing against the heel of her palm, as the little girl glanced one more time to the seat across from her. No matter how many times she looked, Peter’s chair sat empty.

“Morgan.” That was her daddy’s voice now, with a touch of firmness to it. “Finish your food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Sweetie, you have to eat. You’ll get hungry again before bedtime.”

Morgan glared at the table.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Usually, the dinner table was filled with conversation, with her mommy and daddy talking about drama with mommy’s coworkers, or the latest screw-ups by daddy’s hero friends. Morgan would tell her parents about her day at school, the latest gossip in her kindergarten class, and about the boy named Raul who liked to kick her. (She kicked back with more force than him. Unlike that recluse, Morgan climbed trees daily.) Whenever Peter stayed over, those conversations would increase tenfold since her brother was a natural storyteller and recounted his entire day at school, at work, and as Spider-Man with vivid imagery and hilarious exclamations.

But now, the only one steering conversation was Pepper, who was pretty much doing the only talking at the dinner table. Neither Morgan nor Tony were up for much conversation that day, replying to questions with either grunts or one word responses. Given the admonishing glances her mother was giving her daddy, Morgan at least knew she wasn’t the only one bringing down the mood.

“Morgan, honey, what’s wrong?” Pepper asked her, concern washing over her features. Morgan looked at her, feeling a little guilty. Her mother cared a lot about her. She hated making her worry.

“I just want Petey,” Morgan replied sourly. Mentioning Peter’s name made something hot rise in the little girl’s chest. She stabbed at a cooked shrimp angrily, making the prongs of her fork clink against the plate. “He hasn’t come to visit at _all._ ”

“Well, that’s the kid’s fault,” Tony muttered darkly. Right after speaking, there was unseen movement under the table and her father jumped in his seat, wincing at what was probably a hard kick to his leg.

Right after shooting her husband a scathing glare, Pepper turned back to her daughter with a sweet smile.

“I’m sorry, honey, but Peter’s a bit tied up in his business right now,” Pepper told her. Morgan shook her head, her brows drawing together more fiercely.

“Peter wouldn’t leave me behind,” she snapped. 

“He’s not leaving you, sweetie. He’s just busy.”

“He always makes time for me! He never goes past two weeks without seeing me!”

“Morgan…”

“Daddy told him not to come here anymore!” At that, her father stiffened. Morgan glared at him, seething with anger that had finally boiled over. “He’s not letting Peter see me! I want Petey!”

“Morgan, finish your food,” Tony warned gruffly.

“No!” Morgan was hitting the table with her fists now, angry and hurt and curling her lips with a sneer. “I want Petey! I want Petey! I want _Petey!_ ”

“Morgan—”

“Sweetie—”

“Daddy doesn’t like it when Peter is Spider-Man!” Morgan shouted, fury taking over the wheel. “Daddy doesn’t like it, and he yells at Petey because of it, and Petey doesn’t like it when Daddy yells!”

“Morgan, last time. I’m warning you,” Tony growled, danger curling through his voice, disregarding Pepper’s worried panic. “Drop it and finish your food.”

“I _said_ I! Want! _Peter_!”

Tony slammed his hands on the table. Pepper jumps in surprise, eyes wide as Tony points to the stairs.

“Go to your room!” Tony snapped. Morgan pushed away from the table violently, jumping down from her chair and stomping extra loudly to the staircase. “Your mother will bring you the rest of your dinner later. So for now, just sit tight and think about what you’ve done.”

Morgan sneers.

“I _hate_ you!” she declares, before running up the stairs to her room.

* * *

For the rest of that night, Morgan cried. She cried on her bed, wrapped up in the big, silly monkey that Peter had won for her at the state fair. Her mother had come up a while before bedtime, feeding her the rest of her rice from her plate and soothing her as Morgan sobbed into the monkey’s blue fur. Morgan went to sleep that night exhausted, angry and worried and all kinds of scared as she wondered what was happening to her big brother.

The next day, Morgan got ready for school. Her father was nowhere to be seen as Happy waited for her in the living room. His car was parked outside. Morgan’s lips curled at the absence of her father, but she climbed in nonetheless. As Happy started the engine and drove out of the driveway, Morgan propped herself against the window to watch the scenery go by.

When they pulled into the driveway of her school, children of all ages were clamoring about. Morgan set her sights on the big yellow school buses pulling into a different drop-off zone. She could see several other children disembarking, chattering as they headed for the school gates. She never really knew why some children used the school bus. Why not have their parents drop them off in their cars?

A familiar face disembarked from the bus. Morgan blinked, but the car door opened and Happy was gesturing at her to come out.

She was herded to the gates by the mother-henning driver before she was freed. Walking over to where her class lined up, Morgan found the boy in question and tapped on his shoulder. Raul turned around, eyes narrowing as they fell onto her face.

“What?” he snapped. Morgan’s lips curled in disgust at her classmate.

“Why do you take the school bus?”

“Why?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I know. I’m not _dumb._ I’m asking why you wanna know.”

“Because I’m curious.”

“So what?”

“I’m gonna tell Miss Sherry you’re being mean,” Morgan taunted. Raul narrowed his eyes further.

“You gonna tattle again?”

“You know I will.”

“I just take it ‘cause my mom can’t take me.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause she _can’t_.”

“But _why?”_

“Because she has _work,_ dummy,” Raul hissed, giving Morgan a reproachful look. “Don’t your parents work? You should know that.”

“Yeah, but they can always find time to take me to school.”

“Well, what a lucky little rich girl you are,” Raul snarled before shoving her away and turning back to his friends. A little hurt, Morgan drew back and stood quietly in line, mulling over Raul’s words. She looked over all of her classmates, some of whom had drivers like she did, with fancy cars and fancy suits. Like Olivia, who was standing at the front of the line with ramrod straight shoulders and her upturned nose. Others, like that Melinda girl rolling her backpack around the ground for amusement, also had their parents pick them up, but in rickety old cars with washed out paint jobs. There were a handful of children in her class that she knew came to school on the 6am buses, having been enrolled in the before-school program by their parents.

Morgan thinks back to her lakeside cabin, her parents with flexible work schedules, and the fancy cars that pull up in the driveway, and thinks she understands a little better.

* * *

“My brother’s busy all the time. I miss him.”

Raul looks up from where he’s painting a pretty good picture of Spider-Man on his canvas before returning to his work.

“He’s working. He can’t help it.”

“But he always makes time for me.”

“Well, get over it. You’re so spoiled, Morgan.”

Morgan’s expression curls with hatred and she kick Raul in the shins. Raul kicks her back.

“Stop it,” he complains. “I don’t wanna go back to the corner again.”

“Then stop insulting me.”

“I can’t help it if you use big words like ‘insulting’ all the time.”

“I’m improving your vocabulary.”

“Eugh.”

Morgan smugly knows Raul can’t argue against that.

“Have you ever been to New York?”

“We’re _in_ New York.”

“But have you ever been to the city?”

“Well, duh. I live there.”

Morgan rears back in surprise.

“You live in the city?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why do you go to school here?”

“Because my parents say its better than all the ugly public schools there.”

“It’s really far, though.”

“I stay with my uncle’s family during the week, then go back home on the weekends.”

Morgan wrinkles her nose. Raul keeps on drawing, unbothered.

“That sounds like a lot of work.”

“It’s fine,” Raul says distractedly, “As long as I get to see my mom and dad, it’s okay.”

Morgan suddenly feels a strange warmth wash over her. Respect for the other boy blooms in her chest. The two paint in quiet for a while before the idea finally pops into her head. Morgan suddenly grabs Raul’s arm from across the table, making the other boy look up in surprise.

“Help me see my brother,” she demands breathlessly. Raul gives her the weirdest look he’s given her yet.

“What?”

“Help me see my brother,” Morgan repeats. Raul scowls.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Morgan.”

“He’s in the city,” Morgan explains quickly, tightening her grip. “He’s in the city, and he’s busy, so I want to go to him instead this time.”

“Just ask your parents to take you.”

“They’re fighting with him. Well, my daddy is, and my mommy always sides with my daddy. But I want to see him.”

“Well, I can’t take you. I’m a kid.”

“You’re not just a kid. You’re a smart kid. Dumber than me, but smarter than the rest of the kids in this class.”

Raul narrows his eyes at her. Pulling his arm away from her harshly, Morgan falls back against her seat. The boy across from her is quiet for a while before he finally speaks.

“Why not just wait to see your brother until they’re done fighting?” Raul asks.

“Because if you can go to the city to see your parents by yourself every weekend, then I want to be able to do the same by myself.”

Raul stares at her for a while.

Then he shrugs.

“Okay,” he replies. “I’ll take you to New York.”

Morgan grins.

* * *

Morgan and Raul plan in meticulous detail. After Morgan tells Raul her father is Iron Man (breaking the promise she made with her parents before she started school), Raul just stares at her.

“Who’s Iron Man?” he asks cluelessly.

They almost have another fight over that.

Once they got over the initial confrontation (to be revisited later—Morgan will _not_ stand for her father’s heroic persona being ignored), the two work together seamlessly under the shade of the large oak tree next to the soccer field. Morgan tells Raul about the trackers in Mr. Cuddles and her watch, and they make plans to bypass that. Easily.

It’s when Morgan tells Raul about satellite surveillance that Raul pauses.

“Well, that’s gonna be hard to go around,” he muttered. Morgan sighs heavily.

“He can also hack into the school’s security system and watch me through cameras.”

“Has he done that before?”

Morgan thinks back to a particular incident after being separated from her babysitter. And numerous incidents before that.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, your dad’s crazy.”

“Eh. I got used to it.”

“Hey, guys!”

Morgan and Raul look up simultaneously, frowning. Olivia stood in front of them, hands on her hips in her daily prep school get-up, nose upturned and blond curls bouncing in the wind. She sneered down at them.

“Wanna come to my Halloween party?” she asks. Her eyes fall on Raul and she frowns. “Actually, I’m just asking Morgan. You’re too ugly.”

Raul grits his teeth. Morgan rolls her eyes at the blond girl. No one in the class liked Olivia after she came up to the front of the classroom and declared in a haughty voice that she was the richest out of all of them and they should treat her like a princess. They only played nice with her because the adults told them to.

“No thank you,” Morgan muttered crisply. Olivia turned her disapproving gaze onto her.

“You have to come,” she said simply. “Your mommy and daddy know my mommy and daddy.”

“So?”

“You’ll be going anyway.”

Morgan held back a gag. She vaguely remembered seeing an outrageously orange glittery invitation in the mail a week ago.

“I’m busy.”

“No you’re not. You’re with Raul.”

“Yeah. We’re working. So can you go?”

“What are you working on?”

This time Morgan doesn’t hide her frustrated growl, hitting the back of her head against the tree.

“It’s none of your business,” Raul snapped, coming to Morgan’s rescue. Olivia turns to Raul with a scowl.

“I’m not talking to you, city rat.” Olivia turns back to Morgan. “Hey, I overheard you in class today. Raul isn’t even smart. I’m the smartest.”

“Uh-huh,” Morgan drawls sarcastically. She can see Raul grinning beside her as she fixes Olivia with an unamused stare. “Tell us that when you stop having trouble spelling ‘pterodactyl’.”

Olivia fumes. With an angry screech, the girl throws her fists to her sides and stomps off to the restrooms to throw a tantrum. Morgan and Raul laugh as she goes.

When they finish laughing, Raul turns to Morgan with a tentative smile.

“You know, you could always ask Olivia to take you,” Raul suggests. “She’ll literally do anything to be your friend. If you tell her not to, she won’t tell.”

Morgan scoffs.

“And deal with her while I’m trapped in the car? No thanks. Besides, I’d rather work with you than with her.”

Raul grins.

“Then I have an idea.”

* * *

“You sure you don’t want to go to Olivia’s Halloween party this weekend?” Pepper asked Morgan as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her Valkyrie costume. Morgan turned away from where she was admiring the Asgardian craftsmanship—the dressmakers of New Asgard had been eager to take on the commission—to smile at her mother.

“Definitely,” she replied. Pepper snorted, giving her cape one last fluff before retreating. Morgan took the offered hand and followed her mother to the car.

“Now, sweetie, remember,” Pepper told her as the doors slammed shut and Happy started driving away. “It’s a minimum day, so none of us will be able to pick you up. Just stay inside the school gates until Olivia’s parents come to take you to their place.”

Morgan frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Pepper paused.

“Your daddy didn’t tell you?” Morgan shook her head. “Of course he didn’t. The Wartlers offered to take care of you on minimum days. So you’ll be spending time with Olivia then.”

Morgan feels horror overtake her.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Morgan says blandly, mimicking a line Tony and Peter often said to each other. Pepper chuckles at her.

“Sorry, baby,” she says, a genuine apology in her eyes. “Until we find someone we can trust to take care of you, this is what we’re stuck with.”

“I can’t believe it,” Morgan grumbled. Pepper smiled sympathetically.

“Well, after the last babysitter, your daddy has been...difficult,” Pepper explained. Morgan scowled.

“Isn’t he always?”

Pepper gave Morgan a sad smile.

“Your daddy loves you, Morgan,” she reminds, making Morgan turn away from her. They never really got past her outburst at dinner. “He loves you very much. He loves Peter, too. Even while they’re fighting.”

Morgan doesn’t say anything. As the car pulls up to the school, Morgan glances out the window. The last school bus in the driveway was unloading the last of its passengers. She sees Raul jump off the high steps, following in the footsteps of the older kids who secretly keep an eye on him as he makes his way to the school gates, smiles and adoration in their eyes. Morgan thinks back to all the times Tony and Peter worked late in the workshop.

“I know.”

* * *

“Woah. That’s a cool costume,” Raul commented as Morgan sidled up to the line. Morgan beams, throwing the cape out dramatically.

“Right? Valkyrie is so cool!” she gushes. Raul blinked at her.

“I...don’t know who Valkyrie is.”

Morgan sighs.

“Don’t worry,” Morgan muttered, noticing the other students in her class coo over her costume, but with questioning expressions. “No one really knows who she is, either.”

“Who is she, then?”

“She’s the King of New Asgard.”

“The alien colony? And shouldn’t it be ‘queen’?”

“They always call the ruler the king no matter what.”

“Huh.”

“Move, midgets!” Morgan and Raul turn to find Olivia pushing through the crowd of kindergarteners toward them. The young girl huffs when she’s finally next to Morgan, crossing her arms and smirking at the other. She had an immaculate princess costume which Morgan and the rest of the class can easily tell was custom-made as well.

 _Tacky,_ Morgan can’t help but think.

“So did you hear?” Olivia sniffed, triumphantly looking down at Morgan. Morgan noticed the girl had some outrageously high heels to go with her costume. “My parents are going to babysit you today. We finally get to spend some quality time together! Away from these heathens!”

“Seriously?” Raul exclaims, before frowning. “Wait, ‘heathens’?”

Morgan plasters a fake smile on her face.

“I know.”

“So you have to find me after the Halloween parade, okay?” Olivia tells—demands. “So I can take you to the gates when my driver comes to pick us up.”

Morgan’s smile widens mysteriously.

“Totally.”

* * *

Morgan and Raul wait at the back of the group on the soccer field, ignoring the principal droning on and on about the planned festivities. There are food vendors and games littered around the school yard, where the school was hosting their own Halloween party for the community once school let out. Morgan and Raul are looking at the staffers setting up the dunk tank, simultaneously lamenting the fact that they couldn’t stay to try it out.

“Maybe I can ask my brother to take us to the state fair,” Morgan suggested, turning to Raul. Raul blinked at her. “He took me last time and won me a noodle monkey. They might have a dunk tank this year.”

“I don’t think your family is going to like me very much after today,” Raul admitted. Morgan smiles at him.

“Peter will.”

Raul just gives her an disbelieving snort.

“So, what’s the plan, now?” Raul whispered, glancing to the front of the class. Olivia was with the teacher, chattering excitedly about her costume. She had been doing that nonstop the whole day. “If Olivia’s going to be looking for you afterschool, how are we gonna get away?”

“Nothing’s changing,” Morgan whispered back. “Olivia won’t recognize me if I’m wearing your skeleton hoodie. And once the school bell rings, everyone’s going to be walking and talking and standing and she’s not tall enough to see over the crowd despite those high heels.”

Raul snorts. The principal finished his speech, then gestured to their general direction.

“First, our kindergarteners!”

Morgan and Raul stand up along with the rest of their class. As they all merge into a single file line, Morgan can feel the weighted gazes of the parents fall on her.

_“So that’s Morgan Stark.”_

_“I didn’t know Iron Man’s kid was attending this school.”_

_“Stark goes overboard with even his child’s costume, I see.”_

_“Poor girl. She has such a heavy legacy on her shoulders.”_

_“I hear she’s at the top of her class. The teachers say she should be in third grade.”_

_“The audacity! How dare Tony Stark choose to raise a child. Half of the world lost theirs for five years!”_

As the children march across the soccer field to the beat of the crowd’s coos, Morgan subtly scans the gathering. As she suspected, there were private security guards littered throughout the crowd, dark sunglasses hiding their watchful eyes. These ones, Morgan knows, aren’t her father’s doing, but rather the school’s.

_“The target that child has on her back...I feel for her.”_

“Hey, Morgan?”

Morgan turns to Raul, who had broken formation and was walking beside her casually. His scythe sways heavily beside him, too big for his hands.

“What?” Morgan snaps, a little too harshly. Morgan can’t see his expression from behind the ghoulish Grim Reaper mask, but she can tell the other boy isn’t fazed.

“Am I gonna get arrested for helping you out?”

Morgan smirks.

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

* * *

It’s a long and dreary parade. The entire class screams when one of the fifth graders dressed as a horrifyingly realistic zombie, complete with Hollywood-grade makeup, lunges at them. Olivia faints. When she comes to, she screams about the grass stains on her dress.

“I want that person _expelled!”_ she shrieked.

They’re approaching the 8th grade’s lap. Morgan climbs up to her feet, Raul pointedly ignoring her as she waddles over to her teacher at the front of the group.

“Miss Sherry?”

Miss Sherry looks up at Morgan with a smile.

“Yes, Morgan?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“Of course, sweetie. But hurry, school’s going to end soon.”

Morgan nods and makes her way back to the edge of the field. She grabs her backpack, and quickly makes her way to the adjacent school building, where the nearest restrooms are. Morgan casually checks the Avengers watch of a boy leaving with his mother as she steps into the bathroom, where several parents and young children are also going about their business.

12:27pm.

Morgan walks into a stall, unnoticed by the other occupants in the restroom. Once she locks the door, Morgan hangs up her backpack. She rips off the Spider-Man keychain on the zipper, where she can feel the bump of the tracker, and apologizes silently to Peter as she throws it in the trash. Morgan opens her bag and peers in. Raul’s worn out skeleton hoodie and sweatpants are still safely stored inside, previously put there by the two of them during art hour.

_It’s go time._

Morgan quickly changes, stumbling a little with the stiff fabric of Asgardian wool. But she manages, zipping up the skeleton hoodie all the way to the top of her head just as the school bell rings. Flushing the toilet for good measure, Morgan walks out of the stall, peering through the scratchy breathing holes to make her way out of the restroom. No one takes any notice of her as she trots out of the bathroom and enters the crowds of people who have overtaken the schoolyard for the Halloween festivities.

Morgan clumsily makes her way through the throes of people, biting her lips as the moving crowds press into her. She feels vaguely claustrophobic, both from the crowd and the hoodie covering her entire face. Morgan’s heart is pounding. She bumps into one of the security guards she had noticed earlier, and her heart leaps when the guard puts a hand on her shoulder. The man only gently tells her to be careful before sending her on her way.

Morgan makes it safely to the dunk tank, where Raul is impatiently waiting for her. Once Raul spots her in his hoodie, he rushes over and grabs her arm, pulling her to the school gates.

“What took you so long?!” he hisses tensely, eyes darting about wildly as he pulls her across the crowds much more efficiently than she had done. “Olivia’s been complaining about how long you were taking in the restroom. And I think one of the security guards heard her, so they’re probably going to check if you’re in there. They’re gonna notice something’s wrong real soon!”

“Then, hurry!” Morgan hissed back. 

They run through the school gates, passing the bike racks. Raul places her next to the bikes, muttering a little “stay” at her, before running through the crowd. Morgan watches as he sneaks up behind Miss Fresia and her second husband. The first husband, Mister Dirkens, was walking behind the family, gently talking to his son without a mother.

Yeah, it was the school’s messiest arrangement.

Morgan watches as Raul casually brushed Miss Fresia with his shoulder, incidentally brushing her butt. Miss Fresia whirls around, furious eyes landing on her clueless ex-husband.

“Philip!” she accuses scandalously.

Raul races back to Morgan as the ensuing domestic starts to gain steam. He grabs her and they quickly make their way to his school bus, where the driver was casually resting against the steering wheel. Raul tucks her out of the driver’s sight and knocks on the bus doors.

“Miss Ferrel, David and Penelope’s parents are fighting again,” Raul calls out with a bored tone. The driver looks up. It’s at this moment that Miss Fresia’s newest husband punches Mister Dirkens across the face.

“Oh shit!” Miss Ferrel exclaims, leaping out of her seat and rushing past the two kids. The second she leaves, Raul gestures quietly to Morgan. Morgan follows Raul up the steps quickly, and the two scramble inside the bus, plopping into Raul’s usual seat. There are less kids on the bus, given the bus schedules adopting later times for the students who would rather stay behind for the festivities.

Most of the students on the bus are engrossed in their phones. But the 8th grader sitting a few seats away from them narrows his eyes at Raul and Morgan once they take their seats.

“Who’s your new friend, Raulito?” he asks.

“Moors,” Raul replies, as Morgan sits quietly beside him. She’s sweating under the hoodie, and the older boy’s stare does nothing to lessen her nerves. “He’s a transfer. We get off at the same stop.”

The boy frowns at him.

“We have room on the bus for another dude?” he asks suspiciously. Raul shrugs.

“It’s just for today. See?” Raul sweeps a hand across the nearly empty seats. The boy gives the duo one last suspicious glance before turning back to his phone. Raul and Morgan fall against the back of their seats and sigh in relief.

“You remembered to tear off your tracker, right?” Raul whispers.

“Yeah.”

“Your watch?”

“Left it at home.”

“You sure there aren’t any other tracking things on you?”

“I’m sure.”

“Good.” Raul pulls out his phone. It’s cracked beyond belief. “Then I guess we just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

* * *

Morgan loves the school bus. Raul had grudgingly let her take the window seat after she pulled the “you get to ride everyday and this is my first time on a school bus” card. There was just something about the cruder design of the school bus—free from seatbelts and bouncier from the size of the vehicle—that instilled a sense of freedom in Morgan. Plus, the higher vantage point of a taller automobile made the world look slightly different from the view inside a car.

When they finally reached Raul’s stop, the two of them headed down the walkway, merging with the few other students getting off. Raul distracted Miss Ferrel as Morgan made her way off, standing next to the bus stop and waiting for Raul to get off. In the meantime, she took in her unfamiliar surroundings. There were rickety fences around the crop fields, and a couple farm animals were grazing on the grass. She saw a couple of horses nearby, and watched them as Raul finally got off the bus. The doors closed with a hiss and Miss Ferrel drove away, leaving Raul and Morgan alone on the road.

Raul pointed to the nearest dirt driveway.

“That’s my uncle’s farm. Let’s go.”

Raul’s uncle had a lot of junk in the back of his van. So when Raul snuck Morgan into the garage and hid her in the van’s backseat, she blended in pretty well. Morgan listened quietly, hidden underneath a smelly blanket but nonetheless comfortable as Raul entered the house and called out to his uncle.

“Hey, tío! I’m ready to go home!”

“Just a second, hijo, I gotta finish fixing the plumbing of this damn sink.”

Ten minutes later, they were on their way to New York City.

* * *

“Uh, boss?”

“What, Happy?” Tony snapped, guzzling his fourth cup of coffee as he marched through the halls of Stark Industries. When Happy didn’t respond, the man stopped and turned, snapping an impatient hand at his companion. “Come on, what is it? I can’t stand the nerve of the Wartlers. Seriously, who do they think they are, acting like Pepper’s still a fucking assistant? God!”

“Uh, you’re not gonna like them even more after this,” Happy muttered. “Mister Wartler says that his driver can’t find Morgan anywhere. Even the brat that’s in her class hasn’t seen her since she left for the restroom.”

Tony freezes.

_“What?”_

“I said—”

“Forget what you said. FRIDAY!”

_“Pulling up all related security footage.”_

“Where’s that damn bastard? I’m gonna rip him a new one for losing my kid!”

_“The current time is 1:57pm. Authorities say the first 24 hours are crucial in terms of a missing child.”_

“Then _get on it._ Happy! Send out an alert to all nearby Avengers.”

Happy looks up cautiously.

“Even Spider-Man, sir?” he asks tentatively.

Tony grits his teeth.

“ _Yes._ Now hurry!”

* * *

“You seriously can’t pull down the zipper? We’re already in the city.”

“I told you, my dad can control any kind of CCTV.”

“Well, how are we gonna find your brother if you can’t even read street signs?”

“Trust me. He always comes down this street.”

Morgan and Raul were walking around Manhattan. Raul’s uncle had dropped into a nearby dollar store after Raul said he needed to do some shopping for school before he took the bus back home, throwing up Morgan’s pocket money as proof. While they were on their quick shopping trip, Morgan climbed out of the van and hid in the cover of the trees next to the parking lot. She avoided the attention of passing strangers, who no doubt would grow curious at a child standing alone.

As Raul’s dad drove off, the boy made his way over to him. He dug inside the plastic bag and pulled out two bags of chips, grinning.

“My tío gave me a ton of shit for tricking him,” he told her. Morgan laughed a little as she accepted the offering, tearing it open as they began their journey.

Now, twenty minutes into their wandering, Morgan checked the time on a clock situated inside a store. 

3:54pm. 

She turns to Raul as she herds him across a familiar street, blending in with the crowds.

“What time do you usually get home?” Morgan asked.

“Around 4 o’clock. But my parents don’t come home until six.”

“So you’re alone in your house for two hours?”

“Yup. Sometimes, my older brother looks after me. But he’s usually helping my dad with his garage.”

Morgan spots their targeted destination and heads for it eagerly, slinging her backpack to the front of her body as she digs around for her money. Raul watches her as he follows, confused.

“What are you doing now?” Raul asked her.

“Ever since the candy man gave me a free Spider-Man cotton candy, Peter started visiting him on Fridays at 4 o’clock,” Morgan explained, pulling out two dollars. She gestured to the nice stranger who had given her a free stick of cotton candy, back when she was lost in the city. The man was standing in exactly the same spot she had last seen him, serving cotton candy to his customers. Raul eyes him warily.

“He gave you free candy?” he repeated dubiously. “You’re not supposed to take free candy from strangers.”

“We do that on Halloween, though,” Morgan shoots back. Before Raul could protest any further, she dragged him to the cotton candy cart, eyes darting around for any cameras as she pulled up the man, who raised an eyebrow at her as she held out two crumpled bills.

“One Spider-Man cotton candy head, please,” Morgan asked. The man grinned.

“I remember that voice. Whatcha doing there, sweetie?” he asked playfully. Morgan giggled and pulled down the zipper of her hoodie to reveal just her eyes.

“I’m on a mission to find Spider-Man,” she giggled. The man smiled.

“I see,” he replied, a playful note to his voice. The man took the two dollars and got to work on spinning the order. “Well, rumor has it that Spidey himself drops by to eat his own head from this cart at 4 o’clock every Friday. You might wanna stick around, then, kiddo.”

Morgan smirked.

“Okay!”

As the man turned to his work, Raul leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“What do you mean, we’re looking for Spider-Man?” Raul hissed. Morgan silently laughed at her clueless friend.

“You’ll see. Also, don’t say Peter’s name out loud. Okay?”

“Why not?”

“Here you go, little miss!” Morgan turned back to find another immaculate image of Spider-Man woven with sugar threads being handed to her. She beamed underneath the partially drawn up hoodie.

“Thank you!” Morgan said. The man smiled, but then glanced up as something caught his eyes.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” he warned, grinning at the two of them slyly. Morgan felt the corners of her mouth turn up. “We have a special visitor dropping by in three, two, one—”

With a rush of air and a loud thump, Spider-Man landed right behind the two kindergartners. Morgan turned around calmly while Raul jumped and whirled around at the noise. His eyes widened.

_“Ohmygodit’sSpider-Man—!”_

“Hi.”

Spider-Man’s lenses blinked at Morgan before narrowing.

“Hi…?” Morgan heard Peter say dubiously behind the mask. Morgan smiled.

“How is New York City?” Morgan asked, ignoring the shell-shocked boy next to her. Spider-Man stared at her in silence, glanced over at Raul, then back at her.

“....Morgan. Is that you?”

Morgan grinned. Reaching up, she tugged the zipper down all the way to reveal her face. Spider-Man groaned as he threw his head back.

“Morgan!” Peter snapped. Raul’s head snapped over to Morgan, realization blooming in his eyes.

“Wait, you mean your—?!”

Morgan quickly slapped a hand over Raul’s mouth.

“I’m lost,” Morgan said innocently, keeping a struggling Raul in her grip quiet as she trained her eyes on her brother. “Can you help me out?”

Spider-Man stared at her exasperatedly for one more moment before he groaned. Digging in his suit’s pocket, he fished out two dollar bills and handed them to the amused candy man behind the children.

“One Spider-Man cotton candy head, please,” Spider-Man deadpanned. He turned back to Morgan and narrowed his eyes at her. “And dude? If you ever see this girl buying cotton candy from you again, and she’s not with an adult, call this number please?”

* * *

Morgan and Raul waited patiently behind the front desk of Stark Industries’ lobby. They had been walked there by Spider-Man, who couldn’t exactly carry two children and two cotton candy heads of himself while swinging through the city. The entire walk, Raul had gotten to talk to his favorite superhero about everything he could ever want to talk about, and Peter indulged him, keeping a tight hold on both of their hands. Spider-Man had left them there in the lobby, stammering to the front desk lady that he just needed to get the kids’ older brother before running off to change to his civvies in a construction site a few blocks away. As he left, Morgan amused herself with the knowledge that Peter hadn’t noticed that Morgan put her hood up again, and was thus sitting in the lobby as just a lost child and not Morgan Stark.

Raul broke the quiet as he turned to Morgan, an unreadable expression on his face.

“So your brother…?” Raul whispered quietly so the front desk lady couldn’t hear. Morgan nodded.

“Yep. But you can’t tell _anyone._ At all. Not even your family.”

“But this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”

Raul’s excitement made Morgan pause. She thought back to all the security people surrounding the school’s Halloween parade, the whispers of concerned parents, and the attention the trio got while walking through the streets of New York. She thought about the trackers she was forced to carry around, the panic button on her watch, and the news channels that quickly changed when her father’s face came onscreen.

All because she was related to Tony Stark.

“Trust me,” Morgan said darkly, “You don’t want to tell anyone.”

“What? Morgan?”

_Tssh._

_“Uh, Peter to Morgan. What are you doing here? Over.”_

The crackly voice had come from inside her backpack. Quickly, Morgan opened her bag and fished around for her walkie talkie. Raul watched her curiously as Morgan responded.

“This is Morgan. I just came to visit you, Petey.”

_Tssh._

_“Mor, do you know how worried your parents are?”_

Morgan felt a wave of shame crash into her.

“I’m sorry.”

_“Your dad sent out an alert to all the Avengers to look for you. You really messed up, Morgan.”_

“Uh—”

 _“He tore up your school once he found out you were missing,”_ Peter continued, mercilessly breaking through Morgan’s head. _“His business partners—the ones who were supposed to take care of you—they got into a big fight with your dad. And that girl in your class? Ollie or something? She was crying because she thought you got murdered.”_

Morgan gripped Raul’s skeleton sweatpants. Raul looked at her in concern.

“Are you okay, Morgan?” he asked. Morgan ignored him, clicking the button on the side of her walkie talkie.

“I’m sorry, Peter.”

_“Ugh, for reals, Morgan. This is NOT cool. You know we were waiting for a ransom note to come in? Or some kind of proof-of-life, along with some shitty demand from some kidnappers? Seriously!”_

Morgan felt her stomach drop.

“I’m sorry—”

_“Are you really? And what about Raul, Mor? What about his parents? His brother? Sure, he’s used to being alone at home, but what if someone decides to check on him and they find him gone? They’d go to the police! The whole of New York would be out looking for him! And his family would be devastated! Not to mention if someone dangerous found out you were roaming the streets of New York and came to take you away. They’d just take him along, too! And then we’d have TWO missing kids on our hands, two kids that could be in danger while we try to figure out what the hell happened to them in the first place!”_

Morgan watched as the glass doors of the lobby slid open, revealing Peter and his frustrated expression as he walked briskly back inside. He flashed his pass to the front desk lady before heading around to kneel in front of Morgan. Without thinking, Morgan threw herself into Peter’s arms, the tears suddenly starting to build and fall down her cheeks.

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—!”_

“Mor…” Peter pulled back. Gently, he pulled open the hoodie to reveal Morgan’s wet face, cheeks heated with shame. The vigilante’s face took on a heartbroken expression as he wrapped a now fully sobbing Morgan in a hug.

“Mor, it’s okay,” Peter soothed. “It’s okay now.”

“I just—” Morgan struggled to speak through her gasps and whimpers. “I j-just—r-r-really missed you, P-Petey.”

Peter tightened his hold around her.

“I know,” he whispered, a trace of guilt leaking into his tone. “I missed you, too, Mor.”

The two of them hugged for what seemed like a very long time. Raul sat quietly, awkwardly eating the rest of the cotton candy stick as he waited for it to end.

The elevators dinged. Before the doors could fully open, Tony and Pepper came rushing for the front desk, startling the attendant as they circled around to find Peter and Morgan hugging on the plastic bench.

“Oh, thank god!” Pepper breathed, rushing in to join the hug pile. Morgan sobbed harder, relishing her mother’s comforting grip around her back and breathing in her familiar scent, intermingled with Peter’s. Morgan was rocked back and forth as the two of them held her until her sobs ceased.

When they finally pulled back, Morgan wiped her tears to find her dad standing in front of her. Shrinking away, Morgan looked up cautiously, meeting her dad’s dark and unreadable eyes. She took in a small breath, scared.

“I’m sorry, daddy….” she whispered.

Tony didn’t say anything, staring at Morgan with an expression she couldn’t read. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and marched back to the elevator, brushing past Peter who blinked when he passed him. Pepper just let him go, lips pressed together as she followed his trek with concerned eyes. Morgan felt the waterworks start up again and she shivered.

“Daddy—”

“What the _hell_ , Mister Stark!” Peter snapped, turning around and facing the man with fury lining his shoulders. Tony stopped a few feet away from the elevator and looked back coldly.

“ _What_ , kid?”

“Oh dear,” Morgan heard her mother whisper under her breath.

“You’re not going to say anything? That’s _Morgan._ Your _daughter_ , for fuck’s sake!”

“Kid,” Happy snapped, stepping in front of Tony. Underneath his stern expression was a hint of panic. Tony, however, was itching for a release as he shoved Happy aside to glower at the teenager.

“What’re you trying to say, Pete?” Tony bit out.

“I’m _saying_ that maybe you should be a bit more _considerate_ for your _crying kid_ and offer some words of comfort!” Peter snarled.

Raul jumped off his chair and ran over to Morgan. Ignoring Pepper’s suspicious glance, he clapped his hands over Morgan’s ears and blocked her eyeline of the ensuing argument. He stared into Morgan’s puffy eyes and spoke loudly.

“Morgan, just listen to me, okay? This is what my brother does whenever my parents fight sometimes,” Raul started. Despite his hands, Morgan can still hear muffled screaming.

_“—what I’m talking about, Mister Stark! You gotta be more considerate of other people! Even if they’re six year old kids!”_

_“The hell do you know, Pete! You’re not the one who’s been freaking out over a bunch of screens while FRIDAY’s facial recognition came up with no matches!”_

_“I was freaking out, too!”_

_“No, you were fucking buying ice cream from a fucking ice cream truck!”_

_“It was cotton candy!”_

_“Who fucking cares?!”_

“—Olivia’s costume had so much gold in it, I swear people almost went blind when she walked around in the sun,” Raul was babbling. Morgan blinked as she focused on him for a while, a little confused as to what he was doing. “I mean, if she was going for a sun princess, I guess that’d work. But she was trying to do Aurora, apparently, and Aurora doesn’t have gold in her dress I think.”

“What are you—?”

“My brother’s girlfriend is really into Disney movies,” Raul deadpanned. Morgan blinked.

“Oh.”

“I know. I always tell them that they’re too old for that, and that it’s for kids, but all my brother does is throw the popcorn at me and tell me not to ruin his girlfriend’s thunder. And then she hits him for that, but I think my brother likes it for some reason, and then they make me go into my room while they—”

“I don’t wanna know,” Morgan says hurriedly. Raul nods.

“Yeah, you probably don’t. It’s gross.”

The yelling was getting louder. Morgan can hear her mother’s voice joining the fray, vainly trying to calm the two of them down.

_“Why didn’t you just tell us the second you found her?!”_

_“‘Cause I knew you’d freak out! So I told Pepper!”_

_“You told my wife over me?!”_

_“She’s her fucking mom!”_

Raul looked scared. Morgan felt her heart clench. She peeled Raul’s hands off of her ears, making him frown.

“What are you—?”

“—boys, can you settle down—”

“—fucking _yelling_ all the time and it _hurts_ —!”

“—be getting into shit that’s over your head and ignoring my _goddamn orders_ —!”

“—head of security, or at least I was, so can you please leave for a minute—”

“—I’m not fucking helpless and unless you haven’t noticed, there’re less heroes looking out for trouble in New York—!”

“—motherfucking octopus motherfucker on these streets and you’re literally just throwing yourself into that shitstorm—!”

“Petey!” Morgan said as she stumbled over to her brother. Her mother took no notice of her, trying to push Peter back from walking up and punching Tony in the face. Morgan felt her heart sink even further as she noticed Peter’s reddened face, wiry frame trembling with anger and frustration. She quickly walked up to Peter and wrapped her arms around his hips, squeezing him tightly.

“Petey! Petey, stop! It’s okay!” Morgan cried out. Peter didn’t hear her and continued to scream at her dad, so Morgan tried again. _“Petey!”_

Almost immediately, Peter’s head whipped to her. The dark fury in his eyes died away as he registered Morgan clinging tightly to him, face buried in his side.

“Mor—”

“I’m sorry for coming here,” Morgan whimpered. “I’m sorry for being impatient, I’m sorry for not thinking about what I was doing, I’m sorry for making you guys fight, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—!”

Peter seemed to be struggling with himself, breathing hard as he watched Morgan silently cry into his side. Morgan clutched her older brother even tighter, willing the angry trembling she felt overtaking his body to go away.

“—I’m sorry, please don’t fight, please—”

“Mor,” Peter whispered, sucking in a shaky breath as he slowly dropped down to get at eye level with his little sister. Peter brushed away Morgan’s remaining tears with the sleeves of his hoodie, making Morgan whimper more at the action her daddy often did when she had popsicle juice on her face. Peter gave her a shaky smile, still struggling against the adrenaline the fight had instilled in him. “I’m sorry, too. I’m so sorry, Mor.”

Morgan whimpered and threw her arms around her brother. Peter unhesitatingly hugged her back. The two children held each other, Morgan not registering the ding of the elevator or her mother’s worried voice calling out for Tony.

* * *

Dinner was a quiet affair again. Morgan stared at Peter’s empty seat blankly as she finished her noodles. Once she finished, she picked up her plate and jumped off her chair, walking over to the kitchen sink.

“Honey,” Pepper called out worriedly to her, “you don’t have to do that. Mommy and Daddy can take your plate—”

Morgan pulled out the stepping stool and ran the water, scrubbing away at the grime quietly. She ignored the silence behind her as she cleaned her plate and set it on the drying rack. Wiping her hands on the dishtowel, Morgan stepped off the stool and put it back before heading for the staircase. Pepper’s heartbroken gaze followed her up the stairs.

She paused at the top.

“Goodnight,” Morgan called out, before disappearing upstairs. As she walked through the dark hallway to her room, she could hear her mother talking to her father.

_“Tony, you have to make up with Peter. Morgan really misses him.”_

_“She can live without.”_

_“Tony.”_

_“I don’t know, Pep. Seriously. More than anything, I want to make things up with the kid. But now that I’m like this? On the sidelines with a bum arm? I can’t help but worry more. And I can’t save him when he gets into trouble.”_

_“Peter can handle himself, Tony.”_

_“He barely turned seventeen.”_

_“I know. I know, Tony. But Peter isn’t like other children, is he?”_

_“He’s still just a kid.”_

_“But he’s an Avenger, now. He’s carrying the Avengers now. You have to let him go, Tony.”_

Morgan shut her bedroom door. She quietly brushed her teeth in her bathroom before padding over to her bed and getting comfortable under the covers. Peter’s noodle monkey from the state fair was still tucked in the bed beside her. Morgan stared at the monkey for an indeterminate amount of time, not reaching out to touch it.

The door opened.

“Hey, buttercup,” her daddy called out tentatively. Morgan didn’t move. “You want some juice pops before bed?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I brushed my teeth already.”

“You can brush them again.”

Morgan didn’t answer. She heard her dad sigh behind her. Footsteps approached her bed, but Morgan didn’t turn even as the bed tipped under Tony’s weight. Tony placed a hand on her shoulder, biting his lip as he thought about what to say.

“Do you know why we’re fighting, Morgan?”

Morgan stared at the noodle monkey across from her.

“Because Peter is Spider-Man?”

“Close. We’re fighting because Peter’s starting to fight people that are more dangerous than he’s used to.”

“Okay.”

Tony didn’t say anything for a while.

“Your brother might die one day, Morgan.”

Morgan blinked. Turning over in her bed, Morgan looked at her father’s face for the first time in a while. He had a resigned expression on his face, eyes haunted by something she couldn’t understand yet.

“What do you mean?” Morgan asked. “All those people that died before I was born came back, didn’t they? Peter can just come back, too.”

Tony looked torn.

“Morgan, the Blip wasn’t normal,” Tony said. “None of it was. That was just a one-time thing. An exception. We can’t do that again.”

“But _you_ can,” Morgan replied. “You’re the one who finished the time machine. You could bring Petey back.”

Tony smiled sadly at her.

“...that’s not the right thing to do, Morgan.”

“But would you?”

Tony doesn’t answer her.

* * *

_“Walkie check, one, two. Peter to Morgan? Can you hear me?”_

Tony and Morgan looked up from where they were playing with legos on her bedroom floor. Morgan stood and and grabbed the walkie talkie standing on her nightstand, pressing the transmitter as she returned to her spot beside her dad.

“Good check,” Morgan replied. “Hi, Petey.”

 _“Hey, Mor.”_ Morgan looked up questioningly at her father. Tony shook his head quietly, planting a finger against his lips in a hushing gesture. _“Anyone with you? Did your parents tuck you into bed already?”_

“I was tucked into bed.”

_“Oh, that’s good. So. Mor. How did you manage to evade the great Tony Stark and get yourself over to Manhattan?”_

“A whole week of detailed planning.”

_“Heh. I guess you were making plans with that kid named Raul?”_

“Yeah.”

_“He really goes to your school? That’s super far away.”_

“I know. He says he’s okay with it as long as he gets to see his parents on the weekend.”

_“Aw, that’s cute.”_

“Did you get him home safely?”

_“Obviously. You’re talking to Spider-Man. Though, I had a lot of explaining to do when I showed up in the middle of family dinner with their kid.”_

Morgan chuckled.

_“You’ve never really talked about him. Is he your friend?”_

“Kinda? We’re like frenemies. And I have talked about him. He’s the kid that likes to kick me.”

_“Seriously? Huh.”_

“I know. But he’s okay. Better than Olivia.”

_“Ooh, kinder drama. Give me all the deets.”_

Morgan laughs. She doesn’t notice her father fall back onto his hands, watching her with a gentle smile.

“She thinks she’s the queen of everything,” Morgan whispered conspiringly. “Just cause she’s super rich. No one likes her.”

_“Aw. Sounds kinda lonely.”_

Morgan thinks back to how Olivia always talked to Miss Sherry whenever the other kids didn’t want to talk to her. She purses her lips.

“I guess it is.” Morgan thinks for a while before continuing. “You’re a good person, Peter.”

_“Thanks, Mor.”_

“Is that why you’re Spider-Man? Because you’re always good to people no matter how bad they are?”

There was no replying static for a while. Morgan waited patiently as her dad shifted beside her, wrapping an arm over her shoulders to bring her to his side.

_Tssh._

_“I’m Spider-Man for a lot of reasons, Morgan. But the biggest reason is that I can’t let bad things happen when I can do something about it.”_

“Huh.”

_“You’ll get it when you’re older.”_

“What do you mean?”

_“Well, you’re gonna grow up listening to a bunch of world news about bad stuff happening around the world. And in school, you’ll learn about wars and bad, horrific things that happened because people didn’t pay enough attention or care enough to prevent the problem from blowing over. You’ll learn about global warming, poverty, famines, and—”_

“God, is this what he always talks to you about?” Tony whispered to Morgan. Morgan shrugged.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

_“—anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. There are a lot of problems in the world. And if you have the power to help out, you should. It’s just the right thing to do.”_

“Huh. But don’t you get hurt being Spider-Man?”

There’s along pause. Tony grips Morgan a little tighter as they wait for Peter’s response.

_“...yeah. Yeah I do. But I’ve got people looking out for me. So it’s okay.”_

“People like daddy.”

Tony tenses. Morgan ignores him as Peter’s channel crackles to life.

_“Yeah. People like your daddy. Your daddy especially.”_

“Peter, what if you get seriously hurt? What if you go into a coma like they do in the shows?”

A shorter pause, then Peter’s voice comes through.

_“I’m not gonna lie, that’s possible, Mor. But if I don’t do anything, other people will be in danger. More people get killed. I have to at least try to stop them. Keep some families together. So less people cry after a villain destroys New York. I don’t like watching people grieve, you know.”_

“Have you ever had to?”

_“Lots of times. There’s a lot of things that Spider-Man sees that the other Avengers don’t take the time to look at.”_

Morgan looks up at her father. Tony’s face is blank, trained on the lego sculpture of a huge spider they were trying to build.

_“By the way, do you want me to give your friend Raul a walkie talkie, too? I can make one for him, and you guys can talk when you’re not at school. Keep him company on his bus rides.”_

Morgan smiled.

“Sure.”

“What? No!” That snaps Tony out of his silence as he whirled onto his daughter in shock. “Morgan, you’re barely five! What are you doing talking to some boy—!”

_“Uh, what was that?”_

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing! Peter, don’t you dare—!”

_“I’ll swing by and give him one before he leaves for school on Monday.”_

“Thank you, Petey.”

“No, no thank you! Morgan! I can’t believe you snuck out of school with a boy of all things—!”

_“Morgan, is someone with you?”_

“Daddy’s coming to check if I’m asleep. Night, Petey!”

_“Uh, goodni—”_

“Morgan!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I love this chapter!
> 
> Raul and Morgan are a pretty interesting pair. When planning/writing this chapter, I thought about creating a boy who had a crush on Morgan. But then Raul came out instead and I was like, “This boy's gotta stay.” He’s seriously the most interesting OC I’ve ever made. Honestly, I didn’t even think I’d make characters like Raul and Olivia while writing this piece. Now I want to write more about Raul and Morgan!
> 
> Also, I was not expecting to be addressing so many heavy topics in this fic. It's weird. I'm sorry, I know, this was supposed to be light-hearted. But I always have a flair for drama in my writing. :D
> 
> Anyway, as you may have guessed, Tony and Peter are having a serious fight over Spider-Man. The thing is, Peter’s kind of protecting New York all by himself because the other Avengers are either retired or covering other parts of the world. And it’s a lot of work. Peter’s overloaded, and the bad guys have just increased in threat level recently. (I mean, the real big guns are coming to murk him in college, but still.) He’s also been recruiting/working with other small-time vigilantes like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Deadpool, etc. And Tony especially doesn’t like that.
> 
> And Tony’s forced to sit on the bench while his kid goes out crime fighting, so it doesn’t make things any easier.
> 
> Tenses may be a little off throughout the chapter, but I'm leaving it like that because this is supposed to be a fun fic, not a stressful one. Let me know what you guys think! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this chapter!


	6. "10-17. Morgan's gone. All available units, report to the Compound."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan gets kidnapped by a group of vengeful people with a particular hatred for Tony Stark. The Avengers aren’t familiar with the intricate workings of New York’s underworld. But Spider-Man is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love on this fic! And shout out to India_Blue for your dedication to your comments!

She shouldn’t have trusted the candy man.

Morgan watches fearfully as the nice cotton candy stranger gets kicked in the gut over and over again by her captors. The men dressed in nice suits laugh, sneering as they kicked him over and over and over and—

_“Where’s the other Stark kid?”_

_“No one can find him. He’s not at SI or at his prep school.”_

_“The kid’s not even biologically related to the guy, man. Are you sure boss knows what he’s doing?”_

_“You better learn quickly not to question the boss. He does things for a reason. Just trust him. Trust in the family.”_

_“I dunno, man. Kidnapping little girls and some random on the streets of New York just doesn’t seem like the money-raking life I was thinking of when I joined this crew.”_

_“It’s Morgan Stark, dumbass. Hello? Don’t you get it? Tony Stark’s loaded with money.”_

_“He’s also in charge of the Avengers?”_

_“Pfft. What do the Avengers know about the Fisk family, man? They be worrying about aliens and shit. I don’t think none of them ever thought about the real danger lurking underneath New York.”_

_“Whatever you say.”_

There’s a pause. Morgan glances up timidly, meeting the candy man’s eyes. He can’t be older than a college student. The candy man smiles reassuringly at her, teeth broken and bloody.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispers quietly, unheard by the men talking to themselves at the door of the warehouse. “I dialed Spider-Man before they nabbed us. Your friend Raul’s probably talked to him already. Spidey’ll come get you, okay sweetheart? So you don’t have to be scared.”

Morgan quietly nods, a slight movement. The footsteps trail back to the two people lying on the concrete floor. One of the goons kicks the candy man in the leg.

“What do we do about this one?”

“Eh. He’s no one important. Besides, boss said to leave a warning. Tony Stark’s fought aliens, so boss thinks it’d be nice to tell him that he means business even if he isn’t some genocidal maniac.”

“So...?”

“God, you really are wet behind the ears, huh? Just kill him.”

Morgan doesn’t scream, but a tear does roll down her cheek as the gunshot goes off and echoes around the steel walls.

* * *

Tony was just about to nod off on Doctor Strange’s explanation of cosmic threats when FRIDAY speaks.

_“Boss, Spider-Man has entered the Compound. He seems to be in a hurry.”_

Tony blinks his bleary eyes open. He meets the unimpressed gaze of Stephen Strange. Caught. Deciding to make the most of it, Tony yawns and stretches his arms over his head, ignoring the various snickers and sighs around the table.

“Tell him to slow down, Merlin’s speech isn’t something he wants to be on time for,” Tony drawls. Strange narrows his eyes.

“Why do I even waste my time with all of you?”

“What’s the kid even doing here, anyways?” Tony asks. “I thought we were still giving each other the cold shoulder.”

_“Mister Parker says his urgency is related to Morgan.”_

“Uh, Morgan’s at Raul’s hou—?”

_“Mister Parker believes Morgan has been kidnapped.”_

Tony abruptly sits up in his chair, already sifting through the holograms of the CCTV surrounding Morgan’s classmates’ house. The rest of the Avengers fall silent as they watch Tony work soundlessly. On the holograms, Morgan arrives safely to Raul’s house in the morning, escorted by Happy. A few hours later, Happy takes the kids out to Denny’s for lunch, with Morgan obsessively holding Mister Cuddles to her chest. After Denny’s the trio walk through the Manhattan streets, heading for the cotton candy stand that’s become everyone favorite ever since Spider-Man started dropping by.

They get to the front of the line, and the footage cuts out.

“FRI—”

_“City surveillance cameras went down around the block, sir. Additionally, my records show that all of her available trackers are either offline or at your personal residence.”_

The footage picks up again. This time, people are gathering around an unconscious Happy, bleeding from a massive gash across his head. Beside him, Raul is panicking, holding a cellphone to his ear and frantically babbling into it.

“FRIDAY, audio on that phone call.”

_“—took her and the candyman and Happy’s de—dead or something, I don’t know! Spidey, please,_ **_help us—!”_ **

At that moment, Peter bursts into the room, expression furious.

“Karen!” Peter barks. Immediately, Peter’s AI takes control of the holographic displays. Tony catches one last glimpse of Spider-Man swinging down next to Raul and Happy before the feed cuts off. “Mister Stark, Fisk took them underground. We gotta get to them before the 24 hour mark.”

“Why wasn’t I told immediately?”

_“As no hostile confrontation or stranger interaction was caught on camera, the ‘Morgan Monitor Protocol’ did not alert me to her disappearance. Additionally, you requested that all phone calls from Peter Parker be blocked for an undisclosed amount of time.”_

Tony winces at the glare Peter sends his way.

“Sorry, kid,” he says. Peter ignores him, flicking his hands so that the image of Wilson Fisk takes over the desk.

“Here’s the latest pain in my ass, Wilson Fisk,” Peter starts. The young hero starts propping up court records and newspaper articles next to him. “He’s the head of the Fisk Family, the most influential mafia group in New York. His guys are super loyal to him and him alone, and no matter what the NYPD does, his record comes out squeaky clean.”

“What’s his motive?” Sam asks Peter. Peter collapses all the articles and the picture into a digital folder and blows up the image of one particular NY Times headline.

_Real-Estate Mogul Wilson Fisk Slams Tony Stark for His Failure to Prevent the Snap_

“Fuck,” Tony hisses, clenching his fists. “Let me guess, his family got blipped.”

“Obviously,” Peter responds, pulling up pictures of Fisk’s wife and son. “After the Snap, Fisk founded his organization out of grief. The family is made mostly out of people who survived the Snap, lost everyone they knew, and fostered hatred for the Avengers.”

“I remember these guys,” Natasha remarks, eyes narrowing at the files floating above the table. “Steve said that sometimes his therapy groups had to move because of harassment from Fisk goons. They’re still active?”

“Even more so,” Peter answers. He pulls up a chart of suspected Fisk activity. The numbers dipped up after the Blip. “It’s a really tight-knit community. They stuck through five years of darkness together, clinging to each other for comfort. That doesn’t go away easily.”

“If Fisk’s wife and kid got returned to him, why’s he still harboring a grudge?” Tony asks. Peter gives Tony an uncomfortable look.

“He _really_ hated you, Mister Stark,” Peter explains quietly. “His wife and son are both really grateful to you. His son is even an Iron Man fan. But he’s angry that they’re willing to look past those five years he suffered. As if those five years didn’t matter. He’s angry that the whole world is blind to it. And a lot of people underground secretly share the same idea.”

“How do you know all this, kid?” Bucky asks. Peter smiles tentatively.

“I’ve, uh, kind of fought him before…?”

“What?”

“I caught his drug cartels at a harbor a few months back,” Peter explains hurriedly. “The dude’s _crazy_ strong. I think his Body Mass Index isn’t even human—”

“We should focus on Morgan,” Wanda cuts in before Tony can even start to yell at Peter again. The young sorceress gives Tony a significant look as she continues. “And Spider-Man should lead us on retrieval.”

“No, _Spider-Man_ isn’t going to get anywhere near this guy again,” Tony starts heatedly. Peter rolls his eyes.

“The Avengers don’t have anything on file for the Fisk family aside from Natasha’s work almost four years ago,” Peter argued, bringing up said file. The digital reenactment was depressingly thin. “All out-dated. Fisk upgraded all his digs a year before the Blip and got ahold of New York’s innermost security systems. The NYPD’s been having a blast trying to stop his people from hijacking them all the time.”

“Then what do _you_ have on him, then?” Scott asks. Peter smiles.

“Spider-Man patrols,” he says simply.

* * *

Morgan hugged Mister Cuddles to her chest. Inside the stuffed animal, Morgan can feel the bulky shape of her walkie talkie, hidden to her captors. The girl bit her lip as she looked around the room, eyeing the sentries standing guard around her.

She was in a fancy room, sitting on a white velvet couch laid upon a white tiger skin rug. In front of her was a crackling fireplace, an ornate coffee table, and a throne-like armchair that held the large form of a man Morgan had never seen before. He was big and stocky, and dressed finely in a dark business-like suit that allowed his bulging muscles to be seen. Morgan watched as the man sipped from his glass of scotch, watching the fire crackle as he tapped his finger against the armrest.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap._

Morgan stayed silent. Fisk glanced over to her, smiling quietly.

“What’s wrong? Are you not comfortable?”

Morgan said nothing. Fisk continued, waving his hand in the air like he had smelled a particularly pungent odor.

“Those idiots put you in a warehouse,” he grumbled in disgust. “I should’ve been more clear with my instructions.” Fisk glanced over at her. “Now you’re covered in dirt. And I’d hate to say it, but is that blood? God. Those men have no class. We don’t mistreat children, if we can help it.”

Morgan’s eyes flickered over to the corner. The men who had taken her off the street and killed the candyman for his attempts at trying to stick with her were now lying dead in a pile by the doorway. Morgan turned her gaze back to Fisk.

“You’re a bad person,” Morgan finally tells him. Fisk smiles at her in amusement.

“Aren’t we all?” he replies simply before taking another sip of his drink. Morgan squeezes her bear, feeling the walkie talkie push up against her ribs.

_Please hurry, Petey._

* * *

Spider-Man swings onto the crime scene, detaching from Falcon’s booths and rolling to a soft landing. The police officers glanced up in surprise as Falcon lands beside Spider-Man.

“Everything’s under control here, Spider-Man, Falcon,” the nearest police officer says. She waves toward the open doors of the warehouse, where the body of the dead candyman lay silently in a pool of blood. “As you can see, no need for butt-kicking action.”

“We’re here to gather information related to a personal case of the Avengers,” Sam explains as he messes with his wrist guard display. A drone pops out of his wing-pack and starts to patrol the scene. “We won’t bother you at all.”

“You’re not gonna find much, Yuri,” Spider-Man says as he releases his own Droney out to scan the inside of the warehouse. “It’s Fisk for sure.”

Sam looks at him incredulously.

“You’re on a first name basis with the NYPD?” Sam exclaims. Yuri rolls her eyes.

“It was either this, or endure him calling me ‘Miss Police Officer’ everyday,” Yuri deadpans. 

Peter watches through his HUD as Droney scans the ground around the candyman. As the little spider drone scans, the facial recognition software brings up the candyman’s profile. With a heavy heart, Peter scans it.

_Frederick Scott. Recent graduate of New York Academy of Arts. Remaining family members include his elderly parents Sara and David Scott, who live in a retirement home in Maine._

Peter presses his lips together. Something under Frederick’s chin catches his eye.

“Karen, get closer to the abrasion marks on Frederick’s neck,” Peter orders. Karen complies, flying close. Peter narrows his eyes at the distinct pattern of bruises.

“Looks like Morgan’s getting special treatment,” Peter remarks as Karen links the bruising pattern to brass knuckles of abnormally durable quality. “Brass knuckles. If they’re made of gold, then that’s Fisk’s top dogs that took a swing at Frederick.”

Yuri frowns.

“This is Fisk-related?” Yuri asks suspiciously. Peter immediately sends Droney to look through the weed-filled gravel of the warehouse parking lot. “If it’s Fisk related, Spidey, you’re better off leaving it to the police.”

“I know, I know,” Peter responds distractedly, eyes searching the video feed for a certain object. “Believe me, I want admissible evidence to be brought to court, too. But we’re on a tight time frame, and a very important person is in danger. I can’t afford to go through a bureaucratic process right now.”

“Spidey—”

Peter sees something gold glint among a cluster of weeds. Droney flies in and takes it. A golden cufflink. “Yeah, sorry Yuri. Next time, I promise.”

Yuri scowls at him for one more moment before conceding.

“If you’re going to go after him off-book, then make sure to give him one hell of a bruise,” she orders. Peter cups his arms out to retrieve the golden cufflink from his approaching drone, watching it fall into his hands.

“Definitely.”

* * *

“We can’t send out the Avengers,” Peter announces the second Falcon and him walk back into the Compound with new evidence in their arsenal. Tony whirls around in righteous fury, blazing eyes snapping to the figure he considers his psuedo-son. He’s starting to rethink that label now.

“What the hell do you mean we can’t send in the Avengers?” Tony growls. The shoulder attached to the bionic arm he gained after the final fight with the Mad Titan has started itching again, and it does nothing to ease Tony’s frustration and panic over his daughter going missing. “You came to us for help! And now you don’t want to use our numbers?!”

“I’m saying we can’t use _all_ of you,” Peter retorts, icy glare piercing Tony right through his skin. He’s not sure when the teenager in front of him became so frightening. “Fisk’s dirty, and he’s got all these legal loopholes protecting him. Plus, he’s a trigger happy maniac. One small misstep, and we’re looking at a dead body on the streets.”

“Maybe you should’ve worded that a little more carefully, bud,” Clint whispers as steam starts streaming out of Tony’s ears. The retired archer pointedly pokes a finger at Peter’s shoulder, eyebrows raised. “That dead body is his daughter, you know?”

“All the more reason to be meaner about it,” Peter dismisses as he walks away to join the rest of the group. Tony struggles to maintain his composure before letting out a long, heavy sigh when the heavy oak doors blocking the way to the conference room close. He looks up pathetically at Clint, who gives him a small, understanding smile.

“You gotta trust him, Stark,” Clint tells him. “Spidey knows what he’s doing.”

Tony presses his lips together. All that’s running through his head right now is a creaking sliced ferry full of passengers, numerous reports of a rambunctious vigilante causing trouble on the streets, and his daughter’s sweet, chubby face when she tells him she loves him.

“Yeah,” Tony says disinterestedly, swallowing the regret he feels welling up inside him as a darker plan forms in his head. He shakes away the image of Peter’s firm back dressed in a Spider-Man suit as he walks away, pretending to make a phone call. “Yeah. Totally.”

* * *

“The Fisk Family has various ranks, and they have a system for displaying who has higher authority over another,” Peter explains as he brings up several images. The few select heroes he’s selected to participate in this fight with him include Natasha, Bucky, Sam, and Scott. Peter figures they’d be the best out of the entire group at stealth and close-ranged gun fights, with Sam holding a surveillance point when the combatants would go in to engage. He’s tired of Fisk being able to run out and escape the punishment of justice. Spider-Man at least wants eyes on where hes going when he hides. “Cufflinks tell us that we’re dealing with the upper hierarchy of the family. And _golden_ cufflinks means we’ve hit the jackpot.”

“They’re at the top of the pyramid?” Natasha guesses. Peter gives her a vague wave of the hand in response.

“Close. They’re the bodyguards Fisk trusts the most to protect his and his family’s safety.”

“So they’re the goons who surround the big boss,” Scott muses, crunching on his Cheetos. Had Morgan not been in terrible danger, he would’ve related to his Big Mood. “Since this was found at the scene of the candyman’s death…”

“They’re the guys who were escorting Morgan,” Peter finishes, pulling up previous footage of his Spider-Man patrols. Several clips play, all from various different incidents and various locations throughout the city. Karen quickly pauses them and zooms into the frames, highlighting several golden cufflinks with the same Fisk Family symbol engraved on them as the cufflink Peter snatched from the crime scene has. “Problem is, what did Fisk tell them to do after they kidnapped Morgan? Did he have them put her into his human trafficking trade? Or is he setting up one of his convoluted schemes to trick Tony into coming out and fighting him?”

“You think he might be after Stark?” Sam asks. Peter shrugs, motioning for Karen to do a city-wide scan for noticeable Fisk goons with golden cufflinks. With the power of FRIDAY’s servers, Karen is able to do more than she would have been able to do by herself. Peter feels a little bad for only using Tony for his tech, but time is running out. He hasn’t told the others yet, but he knows that when it comes to kidnappings by Fisk, the 24 hour mark is crucial. Once 24 hours have passed, whoever it is that fell victim to Fisk’s schemes was too far into whatever system he put them in for others to find, whether it be the human trafficking trade, sex slave trade, or overseas forced labor. All of their records would be wiped clean, and their identities would become completely blank as they crossed into the irreversible world of the unknown underground.

“It’s a possibility. But whatever it is he’s planning, we have to take Morgan out of it before we deal with him.” Karen comes up with several locations, bringing them up for Peter to scan. There’s too many to search within the remaining 12-hour time frame that they have. And Fisk’s men were bound to notice them at some point, even if Peter picked a group that would succeed well in stealth. “Two hundred fifty. That’s too many. How can we narrow them down?”

“You got any ideas of the type of guy this asshole is?” Bucky speaks, probably for the first time since he got here. Peter frowns, thinking back to his last confrontation with the man.

“He’s a pretty proud guy,” Peter mumbles, eyes focused on the floating screens in front of him. Peter feels his Spidey Sense tingling, on the verge of something big. “He was acting like he was in control the entire time I was fighting him. Just cause I fell into his trap.”

“What kind of trap was it?” Natasha pushes.

“It was fancy. Fisk trapped me in one of his hotels so he could limit my movements by putting his own guests in danger while he rampaged.” Peter narrowed his eyes, suddenly seeing a pattern in a few of the locations. “Karen, narrow down this list. Get rid of all the warehouses and abandoned junk.”

_“Understood.”_

“But warehouses are like the classic big bad place for a showdown!” Scott protests as more than half of the images flicker then disappear. “It suits the mood and all! Ragged and broken down and plain out _dirty_!”

“Fisk likes his riches. That’s why his best guys have golden cuffs,” Peter replies, mind racing. His heart feels like it’s running a marathon without him as the adrenaline in his body starts kicking in. “For the jobs he thinks are below his worth, he leaves that to the bronze or coppers. They’re usually stationed at the shitty areas. And those places only have a couple of gold standards overseeing the proceedings.”

“So we’re looking at habitation,” Natasha muses, leaning back. She watches Peter think with a trained eye. “What are you thinking, spider?”

“I got the VIP treatment from Fisk,” Peter muttered, scanning through all the hotels in the list. They all seem densely populated. “He planned a whole gala downstairs the week before. But the thing is, he wanted _attention_ on me and him. He was trying to break my street cred with the populace when he trapped me in that hotel, so he got as many people as he could inside of it.”

“Street cred? You don’t even look like you can sell drugs!” Scott mutters under his breath. With a minute flick of his head, Karen gets rid of all the heavily populated locations, leaving just twenty-five remaining. Peter stares at them, all residential buildings with various levels of normal human traffic. This is the best he can do.

“If he has the daughter of Tony Stark under his control, he wants as little attention on him as possible to keep the Avengers away,” Peter mutters, standing up straight. Karen immediately begins the process of downloading the information onto everyone’s data drives as Peter starts reclipping his web-fluid containers to his suit. “We have twenty-five possible locations, and the advantage of Fisk thinking we don’t know anything about Morgan’s disappearance. Now, we should move in a group--”

The conference doors burst open and Clint runs inside, hair wild and eyes frantic as he heaves with exertion.

“That motherfucker fucking _tased_ me!” Clint hisses before shaking his head. “Nat, you’ve gotta stop him. I caught Tony doing something weird on his computers, and now I don’t know where he is--!”

_“Mister Parker, you are hereby prohibited from leaving the Compound,”_ FRIDAY’s robotic voice announces, throwing ice cold water over the room. Peter is shocked for a quick second before an unfamiliar fury rises in him. _“Additionally, all communications with the rest of the Avengers who are currently not in this Compound have been cut. Mister Stark would like to tell you all that he’s on the verge of cracking through Fisk’s communication lines, and will be handling Miss Morgan’s retrieval team by himself.”_

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Peter growls before running out of the room. The rest of the heroes follow him, faltering as they see the young teenager lunge for the door. Before he can reach it, metal shutters quickly slam into place, blocking his reach for the handle. “There’s a reason why I said we needed to rely on my patrols! He’s got an entire team of tech-savvy people who have complete control over all of New York’s security systems! They’ve planted hair-trigger alarms everywhere in the framework so they’ll know if he’s messing with them!”

“Kid, what if we let Tony handle it?” Sam asks cautiously, reluctantly taking Devil’s Advocate. He winces as Bucky cocks his rifle and walks over next to Peter, taking aim and firing a load of bulletholes into the metal. “He’s capable enough, isn’t he? Tony’s done a lot. He can handle this.”

“He can’t handle it when he doesn’t know New York’s villains like I do!” Peter snaps as Bucky steps back. With a mighty running start, Peter smashes through the steel walls repeatedly, taking advantage of Bucky’s work in the weakened metal to make the door cave in further. “Fisk’s a proud guy, but he’s not stupid. More often than not, if he feels like he won’t win, Fisk will instantly cut all of his ties to the matter no matter what it costs him. That’s how he keeps a squeaky clean record!”

“What? What is he gonna do then?”

“If Fisk finds out the Avengers are after him,” Peter growls, finally seeing a bit of daylight peeking through the hole in the wall. The teen hero readies himself for one last final lunge and crashes through, creating a moderately sized hole for them to get through. “He’ll wipe all the evidence and witnesses that could link him to the kidnapping. _Including Morgan.”_

“I’ll stall for time,” Natasha suddenly barks, starting to run through the halls of the Compound. “You guys go get Morgan. I’ll hold Tony off for as long as I can, but you have to hurry!”

“Be careful, he could use this entire Compound as a weapon against you!” Clint calls back, wincing as he tries to fit through the hole. Thinking better of it, Clint retreats, gesturing to Scott and Sam instead. “You two go. Bucky and I’ll have to stay here. We won’t get to the city fast enough if we can’t use the Quinjet and we’re all depending on Sam to drop us off. Spidey knows this guy the best, and Ant-Boy over there won’t weigh a thing on Sam’s wings, let alone get noticed. Bucky and I will help Natasha and maybe try to stop whoever Tony contacts within the Avengers for help.”

“Roger that.”

“There’s twenty-five locations where Morgan could be,” Peter tells them as Scott and Sam make their way through the hole. Peter grabs on tightly to Falcon’s boots as Scott shrinks and hitches a ride on his shoulder before they’re taking off, heading for the city. “We need to split up. Tony’s too fast, and we’ll run out of time. I’m taking the Greenwich, Falcon will take Manhattan, and Ant-Man will take the Flatiron District.”

“Copy that, Spidey.”

* * *

Tony taps away at his keyboard, safely secure in his underground lab. No doubt the heroes he had trapped in the Compound with him were furious, but right now Tony has his sights on one thing only. Listening to several ongoing conversations through encrypted cell phones he had hacked and scanning location pings he pulled up from Fisk’s heavily guarded servers, Tony runs through all the data before finally solidifying his conclusion.

“She’s real close to one of our own,” Tony mutters to himself as he rolls over to his workbench to grab his phone. Pulling up his contacts, Tony scrolls for a specific number. “But I guess with a sorcerer who can open portals to literally _anywhere_ , she’d be close no matter what.”

Tony picks Doctor Strange’s contact and holds the phone to his ear. The message he gets surprises him.

_“I’m sorry boss, but Missus Potts has completely restricted all of your communicative channels,”_ FRIDAY tells him through his phone. Tony rears his head back in surprise before glaring at the ceiling.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?!” he demands, quickly rolling back to his computer. He starts hammering frantically at the keyboard before finding that nearly all of his administrative privileges in changing FRIDAY’s protocols have vanished. “What?! Are you kidding me?! How is this possible?!”

_“Miss Romanoff contacted Missus Potts with the assistance of Clint Barton and Bucky Barnes,”_ FRIDAY explained dutifully, causing Tony to curse. _“They told her it was in Morgan’s best interest to leave her retrieval out of your hands.”_

“Fuck! I already have her location! The kid hasn’t even narrowed down the twenty-five he got!”

“With good reason,” comes a familiar voice. Tony only has the shadow of a reflection of a warning before he’s diving out of his chair to avoid a blow from a trained assassin’s hand. He winces as his bionic arm tugs uncomfortably on his shoulder, falling into a crouch as he eyes Natasha’s relaxed form propped against his chair.

“Nat,” Tony greets, before nodding at the opened vent in the wall. He knows the answer to the question he’s about to ask, but says it anyway, biding for time as he races for a possible out. “Barton and Barnes not joining you?”

“Bucky’s shoulders don’t fit through this particular set of vents,” Natasha replies, eyes trained on Tony as she mildly swings her Widow Bites in her hands. Watching him. “Clint’s fat. Retired life doesn’t do much for that tummy fat he’s sporting nowadays.”

“I’ll bet,” Tony agrees, trying to keep his eyes from lighting up as they fall on a solution. Natasha follows his gaze to the walkie talkie sitting on his work table, innocent and purposefully free of any connections to a wired network or meddling AI. She turns her gaze back to him when Tony stands up, casually brushing off his jeans as he walks over to the device.

“Don’t do it, Stark,” Natasha warns, staring at him with her intimidating indecipherable gaze. Tony rolls his eyes and stares at her incredulously.

“Do you really think Pete’s not gonna mess this one up?!” Tony exclaims, waving his arms wildly as Natasha’s eyes narrow. “He’s a fucking teenager! He’s rash, and impulsive, and he doesn’t get why I keep telling him to be more careful on his patrols because he’s such a fucking danger magnet—!”

“I know what Peter’s capable of,” Natasha remarks, arms crossed as she stares judgingly at Tony. Tony feels like he’s being chastised by his mother, disapproval radiating off of the other agent in waves. “I’ve followed him on some of his cases, when he needed my input. We’ve put a lot of baddies in jail together.”

“So you think Fisk can get past the Avengers? The heroes who saved the world?”

“He won’t get past us. He’ll notice us, then shoot your child in the head.”

Tony winces. Still, he grabs the walkie talkie on the table. Never did he think he’d be grateful for Morgan wanting to possess a taste of Peter’s bulky tech, though it’s ironic that it’s Peter’s tech saving him now when Tony didn’t trust the young hero to find his daughter by himself. Natasha narrows her eyes as Tony wraps his hand around the device, fingers stopping her weapons from their casual sway and tightening around their handles.

“If you try and do this, Stark, I _will_ fight you.”

Tony glances up. Natasha had shifted away from the chair, weight steadily balanced between her legs. Ready to attack. Tony presses his lips together as he holds up the walkie talkie and waggles it at her.

“Sorry, Natalie, gotta call the team in,” he taunts. His finger moves toward the button.

Natasha lunges, Widow Bites crackling in her hands.

* * *

The sun is sitting low on the horizon. Morgan watches it as the sunrays glint off of the distant Stark Tower, biting her lip. She shifts uncomfortably on her spot on the couch as one of the goons with the golden cufflinks puts a hand to his ear, frowning before turning to his boss.

“Sir?”

Fisk glances up at his bodyguard, mildly annoyed at the interruption as he reads the latest stocks report.

“What?”

“There’s been a breach in our cellular communications. Our experts say they can’t track the source, but whoever it was seemed curious about our movements.”

“That...is interesting—”

_Tssh._

Morgan’s face pales as the familiar sound of her walkie talkie channel crackling fills the room. She immediately starts to chant in her head.

_Please don’t say anything bad, please don’t say anything bad, please don’t—!_

_“10-17,”_ Tony rasps tiredly through the walkie talkie inside Mister Cuddles. Morgan’s eyes widen with fear. Fisk and the rest of his men snap their eyes to her and her teddy bear. _“I—I’ve found Morgan. All available units, report to the Compound.”_

_Oh no._

Fisk’s calm face stares at her for a second before it turns absolutely menacing. Stomping over with loud, heavy steps that make the floor tremble, Fisk rips Mister Cuddles away from Morgan and tears it open. Her walkie talkie comes tumbling out, clattering along the floor. Fisk lifts a foot and crushes it with his heel, tossing the remains of Mister Cuddles into a far corner of the room. Morgan flinches, terror overcoming her small frame as Fisk muscles up and turns to the rest of the occupants in the space.

“Who was the idiot who let her in without checking for Stark tech?!” Fisk booms. A man standing by the door timidly raises his hand. Fisk draws his gun and shoots him, causing Morgan to clap her hands over her ears. The man gurgles as he slides against the doorframe, falling to a lump on the carpeted floor.

Fisk scoffs before turning to Morgan. Morgan’s eyes widen and fill with tears as Fisk props the point of the gun to her forehead.

“Stark is amazingly stupid, isn’t he?” Fisk growls as Morgan begins to whimper. His lips curl into a sneer as he fingers the trigger. “I just thought I’d take his daughter away for five years, give him a taste of what it’s actually like to lose your family for half a decade. But turns out, he’s still the cocky little bastard he was back then. Arrogant and acting like he’s the most powerful existence on this planet. 

“Either way, it doesn’t matter now.” Morgan flinches as Fisk cocks the gun. “A dead kid will serve as a better reminder. Give him a taste of what New York really is nowadays.” Fisk’s smile turns into a deadly curl as he starts to put pressure on the trigger. “Sorry, little girl. Daddy made a mistake! Say bye-bye, now.”

Morgan starts to babble.

“Nonono please, _please_ ! Let me live—let me _live!_ —I haven’t finished the Star Wars movies with Petey!—I want to pet Gerald one more time!—I wanna say goodbye to my Mommy!—I haven’t said sorry to Olivia yet!—Raul’s gonna get bored on his bus rides— _I don’t wanna_ **_die_ ** _!_ ”

_Bang!_

Morgan screams as pain laces through her skull. Curling into a ball, Morgan quickly reaches up to her head. When she brings it back into view, she finds blood coating her fingers.

Meanwhile, Fisk is being thrown across the room into the far wall. Crashing through the thick material with a grunt, he stumbles amongst the rubble as his men pull out their guns and point them at the intruder.

“Freeze!”

Spider-Man narrows his eyes at the men in the room. Bringing himself back up to full size, he quietly surveys the ten men situated inside, and the footsteps of twenty more thundering from the floors below. 

“You guys will be sorry you messed with her,” he growls before leaping into action.

* * *

Pepper hurries down the ruined corridor, ignoring the stammering policewoman behind her as she looks around frantically. Several men were webbed up around her, either unconscious or suffering serious injuries. But as Pepper crawls over the destruction of the penthouse apartment, the child she was looking for was nowhere to be seen.

“Mommy!”

Pepper frantically follows the voice, barging through a gaggle of police officers before finally sighting her child. Sobbing, Pepper rushes toward Morgan with open arms, pulling the young girl into a tight hug.

“Ouch! Mommy, mommy! That hurts—!”

“Ma’am! She has broken ribs, please don’t—!”

Pepper lets go of Morgan as if she was burnt. The mother takes in the sorry state of her daughter, eyes roving around the bloody bandage around her head, the stiff way she held herself, and the numerous scratches she got from glass shards. Tears welled in Pepper’s eyes as she gripped Morgan’s hands tightly and tried to smile.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, baby,” Pepper stutters through her sobs. Morgan gives her a wobbly smile, reacting to her mother’s emotions with tears of her own.

“I am, too.”

As her mother wraps her in a gentler hug, Morgan’s smile fell off her face. Her mind flashes back to the memory of a gun being held to her head.

_“His dead kid will serve as a better reminder.”_

_“Sorry little girl. Daddy made a mistake! Say bye-bye, now.”_

Pepper pulls back, a thought occurring to her. Frowning, Pepper scans the room for a familiar face before turning to Morgan.

“Sweetie? Where’s Peter?”

* * *

Natasha hisses as Tony dabs at her wound with disinfectant. The man gives her a sheepish grin.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. Natasha glares at him.

“No, you’re not,” she grits out. Her eyes flicker over Tony’s shoulder. “But you might want to find a better heartfelt apology quickly.”

Blinking, Tony turns. The doors to the medical wing slid open, revealing a bloody Peter stomping inside furiously as the rest of the available Avengers scurry in after him. Clint hops in front of Peter’s warpath, grinning cheekily.

“Hey, kid, I know your dad’s kind of a dick, but—”

“ _Save it,_ Mister Barton,” Peter snaps before shoving the archer out of his way. Clint lands comically on his butt. Rhodey finally puts his arm on Sam and Bucky’s shoulders, holding them back. They look back incredulously.

“Rhodey, what—?!”

“Honestly? Tony’s getting what he deserves,” Rhodey replies grimly.

Tony watches in confusion as Peter marches over with a stony face, blinking.

“Kid, what are—?”

Peter clocks him square across his jaw. The crack of a dislocated bone echoes through the air.

“ _Shit_ , that’s gotta hurt,” Scott murmurs from somewhere behind the pack.

Tony falls to the floor, groaning. Peter looks up at Natasha sitting on the examination table, eyes dark with fury as he surveys her injuries. The assassin quirks her eyebrow at him.

“Did you manage to save her?” she asks. Peter grits his teeth.

“Barely,” he growls. Natasha nods quietly.

“Good job. Sorry I couldn’t hold him off longer.”

“You did fantastic,” Peter praises as Tony rolls onto his back, blinking back tears. “Had he sent out that message five seconds sooner, I would have swung in to find my sister lying dead on the couch.”

Tony perks up at that.

“You found Morgan?” he asks in disbelief. Tony falters as Peter’s cold gaze snaps to him.

“No thanks to you,” he growls, before grabbing the front of Tony’s shirt and hauling him to his feet. Bruce lets out a cry of protest, but everyone stays back at Natasha’s hard glare as Peter forces Tony’s face inches away from his.

“Do you know,” Peter starts, deceptively calm despite the anger frothing inside of him, “What kind of situation I found Morgan in? Fisk had his gun pointed to her head, about to pull the trigger. And do you know why?”

Peter’s grip tightens. Tony winced as his shirt’s collar digs into his neck. Peter’s eyes grow colder and his voice drops to almost zero degrees, worthy of frostbite.

“Because _someone_ decided to broadcast an Avengers summon to the entirety of of the mob boss’ posse through Morgan’s walkie talkie hidden inside her Mister Cuddles,” Peter mocks. Tony’s blood freezes. Clint tries to step in.

“Peter—”

“Clint, stay out of it,” Natasha snaps.

“You know what else I walked into? Morgan begging for her life,” Peter continues mercilessly, pinning Tony with the iciest glare he had ever seen from the teen. “Literally, on her knees, _begging._ She knew she was gonna die, Mister Stark. All because of _you_.”

“Pete—”

“You’re the one who put that gun to Morgan’s head, Tony.” Peter shoves Tony away. He reaches into his pocket and hands Natasha a slip of paper, which she takes without question. “You’re the one who almost ended your daughter’s life. Just because you couldn’t trust me to handle it. And for that, I can’t forgive you.”

Peter knocks harshly past his mentor as he heads further into the medical wing, ignoring the worried calls of Bruce following after him. Tony leans heavily against the examination table, face blank as the others watch him pitifully. Natasha quickly scans the note Peter had given her before pulling out a lighter and burning it.

“What did it say?” Sam asks tentatively. Natasha watches the paper burn to a crisp in her lap.

“Fisk got away, free of charges,” Natasha reports. “But he’s not on the run. He’s just sitting pretty in New York again, blending in with the elitist crowd. Now Spider-Man’s on his special blacklist. I’m gonna have to train Peter on how to avoid mafia killings and assassinations from now on.”

“He’s just a kid,” Tony whispers brokenly, still processing the heavy weight of the information that had just been loaded into his lap. Natasha turns her sights to the billionaire.

“He stopped being one when he put on that mask, Tony,” she reminds him. Tony hides his face in his hands.

“Fuck.”

“Uh, so that seemed pretty bad,” Scott tentatively comments. Sam rolls his eyes at him as Scott tries to cheer up the room with his comedy. “You think some nice hot chocolate will cheer him up? Start you two on the path to forgiveness?”

Tony watches through the distant bay window as Peter peels off the Spider-Man suit in front of Bruce. Bruce blanches as he sees several gunshot wounds littering his body, oozing blood and dying Peter’s skin with rivulets of red. 

Tony closes his eyes.

“No,” he replies. “I think Pete’s going to keep this with him for a long, long time.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooooo….  
> Hello, again! I’ve decided to upload another entry to this fic because of how much enthusiasm there is around this story. Special shout-out to India_Blue! Yes, I’ve noticed you commented three times on the same chapter for the past month wishing for a continuation. This one’s dedicated to you!
> 
> I did actually have a draft for this chapter written out. But it was kind of dark, and I didn’t like how ugly Tony and Peter’s relationship had fallen. So I tried to scrap it. But there were just too many cool scenes that in the end, all I did was rewrite the inconsistent plot points and characters, keeping the underlying plot the same. Yeah, I tried to save Peter and Tony from getting this far into their discourse. But it was too good to just let go.  
> As for whether Doctor Strange could've saved Morgan faster than Peter or before Fisk was alerted to the breach in his systems, Doctor Strange doesn't like answering to proud assholes who snore in the middle of an important breakdown of the dangers of dimensional collapse. He'd likely ignore it. And currently, he's dealing with said dimensional collapse.  
> You’ll notice that there are actually 7 chapters instead of the usual 6 for a 5+1 fic. That’s because this entry isn’t supposed to be a good use of the walkie talkie. It was actually detrimental. So the real “One Time It Actually Is” will be coming in the next entry, which I cannot promise a set upload date for.
> 
> For those of you who are waiting for THTS, sorry for the wait! My interest in the MCU was waning after FFH, mainly because I just hated what they did to poor Peter and I just could not bring myself to think about the MCU for too long. That, and some irl stuff. As usual. Just to be clear, THTS will still be returning sometime in Nov/Dec. With less frequent updates. But it’ll be there. I promise! *sweats*
> 
> In other news, would anyone be interested in a BNHA fic? :)  
> —Ronan


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